The Importance of Prioritizing Yourself (feat. Tommy Breedlove)

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Hi, I'm Susan Drummond. Welcome to the Enlightened Executive where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each episode we feature groundbreaking techniques and strategies to help you get the edge in personal and leadership effectiveness. This episode is brought to you by Meritage Leadership. At Meritage, we strengthen leaders and empower teams to achieve high performance. Go to meritageleadership.com to learn more. Today we're focusing on what it means to be legendary and what that means for self awareness. And I'm thrilled to introduce Tommy Breedlove. Tommy is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today best selling author of the book Legendary and his program Legendary Life Movement challenges high achievers to stop chasing the outdated ghosts of More and When and instead teaches them to lean into their legendary leadership, becoming the extraordinary humans they were born to be. Tommy had a 20 year corporate career at one of the largest public accounting firms. And at the height of his career, he experienced a transformational moment inspiring him to walk away from the corporate world, to change his life and follow his true calling. So we're going to be getting into that important pivotal moment and what happened. And I'm so excited to have you on the show, Tommy. Welcome.

Susan. It's been fun thus far. We had a lot of jokes and laughter and it's going to be let's lean in. I'm ready, excited to be here and let's do this.

Well, awesome. So tell us a little bit about your journey. Who were you before and who are you now?

God willing, two very different people. I'll start at the beginning of the journey and actually we'll start in the middle of the journey. Senior partner, international practice leader, a very large public accounting firm. I grew up in Deloitte, so I know some of your audiences in that world. So I cut my teeth in. Deloitte, was recruited out of there. I was 36 years old, had the corner office, the shiny cufflinks, the tailor made suit, the nice car, the pretty girl on his arm, my wife, who's still with me, thank God and thought that I came from very humble beginnings, which I'll talk about in a minute. And I thought that money, status, success at the corner office would make me happy. And when those didn't, I actually turned to the wolf of Wall street lifestyle and actually lived that for almost three years. And when the money, the title, the respect, the status, the fame, the respect which I had earned, all of that didn't fill me up. I turned to a dark lifestyle and at 36, almost lost my firm, almost lost my career, almost Lost a lot of friendships, almost lost my marriage. And if I'd have kept going, I would have probably lost my life. And the truth is I grew up as a young, young boy. And I know you talk about this a lot, how our childhoods show up in our careers. Well, unfortunately as a child I grew up in and around a lot of abuse and violence both inside and out of the home. And I was going to be the first person in my family to go to college. And at 18 became what I hated, became that violence and abuse, committed a violent crime. At 18, instead of going to the university where I had multiple rides everywhere, full scholarships everywhere, I actually, luckily it was dropped down from two felonies to two heavy misdemeanors. But I was sentenced to two years and spent my 19th birthday incarcerated, which is a far cry from college. One of the things I'm most proud of though, is a mentor appeared in my life, an African American gentleman named Tony. And with his mentor, he's one of the first positive male figures that ever appeared in my life. He's in his 40s, I was 18 years old. And with his accountability with his mentorship, I dusted myself off. And one of the things I went to a nuclear waste container factory during the day, community college at night, did end up back at the University of Georgia. And one of the things I'm most proud of is I went from a cage to being hired by Deloitte in just three years. And so I'm really proud of that. But I never dealt with any of that anger, rage, insecurity, fears, worries that I had as a kid. And those were manifesting itself through arrogance, which is insecurity on steroids at 36 years old, but wearing all these masks, tough guy, important guy, life of the party guy, wouldn't ask for help guy, I would outwork you. Yee. Who turns lights off last guy. And none of those were Tommy. And it almost cost me everything like we talked about, because I never dealt with any in that moment. At 36 years old, I found myself in a ditch in downtown Atlanta. I was probably doing some multimillion dollar deal the day before, looking at the blue sky, thinking, man, how did I get here? Why are you like this when you don't want to be? And more importantly, what am I going to do about it? And at that moment, at that very moment, Susan, is when I decided to make me my mental, emotional, spiritual and physical body, my full time job and my whole life transformed in that three years by just prioritizing myself. First really Working on my heart, mind and soul and my body. And let me tell you what happened. Let me tell you the tangible results that happened to me. In three years. I went from a junior partner in the firm to a senior partner to international practice leader to an owner and elected to the board of directors at 39. Most of the people were in their 60s, my income doubled. My network 10x and I went from being one of the most feared people in the firm to one of the most beloved. The intangible results were I eliminated all of the negative friendships and influences in my life and put it positive. And some of my greatest friends are still there today. My marriage went from life support to one of strength, love, and most importantly, I went from that arrogant, insecure, fear based, negative human to humble, courage, confidence, love, peaceful and feeling a sense of freedom. And those were all the results of making me my full time job. And I never planned on writing a book or creating the legendary life movement, a home for high achievers to do business in life with. And it when, when my network of private equity, venture capital, public accounting, professional services, entrepreneurs and executives, I had a amazing network. When they saw the transition not only of the success I had in my business, but that 180 transformation of how I have my success in life. And they would ask me for a glass of wine or go for a walk or coffee or lunch. I thought we were just going to do, you know, deals together, more business together. And they didn't want that. They wanted to know how I did it. And that allowed me to vulnerably and authentically show up for them and tell them my truthful story. And what I noticed is they started telling theirs and we all have pretty much the same issues as ambitious, driven types. And they were like, man, you got to write a book and would you coach me? And they were everywhere from 30 years old to 75. So whoever you are in life is never too late. And so I sold my equity at 39 years old, walked away from the top of the game, significant amount of money left on the table and went and chased this dream, wrote the book and really excited about being here today. I created the legendary life movement. So that's what brings me to you. That's the story. That's the real story, the authentic story.

That's an incredibly inspiring story of such a turnaround. You had two major pivots in your life. You had pivots obviously from the early part of your career and then an even bigger pivot at 36. So. So you must have had Some type of support. What was most helpful in making that transition? Because that's a pretty drastic transition at 36. What was it in that besides the mindset shift? You were going to focus on this, but what were some of the tools or things that you use that best supported you on that journey?

Yeah. So at 36 years old, I think the number one tool that I had was my wife. And I always say that she could love me when I couldn't love me. Right. You know, I was trying to feel a hole inside my head because I was taught as a young boy that hey, you're unlovable. And I believed it. And it was, it was my job to prove everybody that I was unlovable. Really. So I Remember clearly at 36 years old, my wife and I were going through marriage counseling. And I remember the, the counselor telling me one time in one of our one on ones, hey man, there's a place for you that can do more in seven days for you than I can do in 10 years. And I heard him. And so I went to this place in Tennessee who helped me and There was Fortune 500 CEOs there, there was little rock stars that you would know there. And what I realized is we all have these fears, we all have this voice inside our head that says we're not good enough. We all have these insecurities. And what I realized, I wasn't alone. And at that time, I was so anti personal development, anti leadership development, anti growth. And clearly that wasn't working out for me that I totally did a 180. And so basically that place gave me all kinds of tools, tips, strategies to be elite, emotionally, mentally, as well as I was going to always be. I'm a business focused guy. But at that point I surrounded myself. You know, I hired a life coach, hired an executive coach, hired a marriage, a marketing coach, a therapist, read every book I could get my hands on. And so from from age 36 till now, I mean, I'm in the success mentoring business. I'm in the business and leadership business. And to this day I run masterminds. To this day I'm in a mastermind. I pay to be in a mastermind. I'm working with two coaches today. So the toolbox is every book, every coach, every self development biography. Business leadership is not only did I read and consume it and work with those folks like yourself, I also applied what they were teaching into my life. I didn't just get the wisdom and get the coaching, I was actually applying it. I think so many people Read. But they don't apply the wisdom they get. So many people hire a coach and then they don't do what they say. I remember when I was at the firms, we'd bring in all these world class consultants to help us in whatever sales, marketing, efficiency, operations, whatever it might be. And we thought we were smarter than them when they would leave. I mean, we paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for them to come in and we wouldn't do anything they said. I did the exact opposite. So if someone has said, stand on your hands and sing Kumbaya and light a candle, I'm going to stand on my hand, sing Kumbaya and light a candle. I know it's being a little bit dramatic, but those were the tools is I went to 180.

And you approached it with curiosity. You had open, you know, learners mindset versus and a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, all of those things.

Absolutely.

And what I also heard in your story is you don't. It never ends.

Right.

And it's something I really believe myself. I mean, I continue to work with coaches myself. You know, I've been doing this work for over 20 years. But we can't always see our own blind spots. Right. That's why, you know, does a dentist work on themselves? No, they have another dentist working with them. Right. And so I think it's really important to. This is a lifelong journey and what's the next level and the next level and to really get it. And I'm eager for more. And what is that? You know, how, how does that look?

Yeah, I agree. I couldn't agree more. And I, I believe, I mean we're always a work in process and everything is an energy flow. Right. Not only we do the have to do the millions of hours of working on our craft to be in elite and what we do. And I believe everybody that's probably listening to this podcast is elite at what they do, but just not. We don't have to just work on that muscle and our physical muscles. We got to work on our heart, mind and soul muscles, which we're not taught as children, nor do we do much in adults. And if we don't, we're weak. And so for me, the work also is we're constantly have to work on our inner game and our outer game, not only to be elite in our business, elite in our bodies, but our inner game as well, which will help us be better parents, which will help us be husbands and better husbands and wives, which will help us be better leaders. And so when we don't work on our heart, minds and souls as well a lot and prioritize our. The number one limiting belief we overcome in this movement is prioritization of self first. We usually put our careers first, fun and family second, friends and network third and ourselves last, which is the exact opposite. What what leaders need to do, we have to participate in on rescue and prioritize those. I'm talking about our heart, mind and soul muscles, not only our craft muscles and our physical muscles. And so that's the number one thing we have to overcome is shifting it. But you got to constantly work on them because if you don't work on them, they atrophy or even, even worse. And that's where the failures in leadership, that's where the failures of integrity and that's where things come.

And I think you have to look at why is that happening that you're not prioritizing yourself. Like usually it's like, well achieve this because I'm actually trying to fill some hole because I don't feel successful enough or I need to keep up with the neighbors. Like all of really taking a look at what's truly driving you because why otherwise wouldn't you. And then there's also a belief in like well that's selfish to do. Like why should I do that really? I need to be a giving leader. So why would you say prioritize my myself, Right? And so how do you answer that?

So it's the curse of high achieving ambitious people. There's two things. We're always measuring ourselves against an ideal. And no matter where you are in your life, you can never meet up to that ideal. I mean I have clients that are ultra, ultra famous and wealthy like yourself. You have those clients too. And they're always measuring themselves to an ideal and you can never get there. It's like swimming to the horizon. And we also are always chasing the ghost of winning more. We are a status respect, power driven society. That's just our nature. It's what also makes us great. So our biggest what makes us great as business people is what always makes us also is our greatest weakness. Right? And I think we always have to ask ourselves what are we running from and running to? And there's always the ghost of winning more. When I have this or when I have more of this, I will be happy or then I will focus. And we never get there. They're ghosts. You can't catch them. And I think it's driven from lack of self awareness. I think it's driven from Insecurity. I think it's driven from blind spots and we're always trying to make people who don't matter matter and impress people who, you know, so be it. We were teasing about an accounting firm before. It was just a joke. We were teasing about that. But I think whether it's accountants, a lawyers, insurance, entrepreneurs, executives, I think it's easy because we're craving status, respect and power and it's thirsty and it's a quint. You can't quench that thirst. And we always just want more of it and we usually are chasing it because of some deep lack of self awareness or insecurity and. And it can come at the cost of so much more, from our friendships to our relationship. Like seven out of the 10 people listen to this podcast, their. Their marriage is in the not good. It's just. That's statistics. That's not me being don't send me hate email because I won't read it anyway. But that's. That's that I won't read it. But anyway. The. But we. It's at the expense of everything else. And so I don't. That's what you and I are working on, right? As the enlightened. You know, the enlightened executive is I. We want people to be elite in their business and success and I want you to make as much money as your heart desires and I want you to go crush it and kill the competition. I'm all in on that, but I don't want you to do it. I don't, I don't. When your time is up, and that's what we all have in common is we're going to die period, is when our time is up. I want you to have a heart full of gratitude and no regrets. And you'll never regret the. And it's about quality over quantity too. I'm a business guy, so when you're. But when we're with family, when we're with friends, we're. When we're significant others, it needs to be quality, right? We need to be there and make sure we're making time for it. I just don't want everything to come at the expense of everything else. But I think it's fear, insecurity, and really letting people who don't matter matter.

And what in your journey has been the most transformational books or other resources that people could get a hold of? You mentioned you were consuming every book and I think they do offer incredible enlightenment if you applied them. What was most impactful in that journey Book wise. Yeah.

I would say I could tell you probably the, I'll tell you the three things that were mocked. I think the book that I worked and studied and worked even more was Think and Grow Rich by an Appointed Hill. I've probably read that book and worked it countless of times. And back when I was even in the financial world, I created a, I didn't realize it at a time, a mastermind of my peers and we worked it together. And the benefits, you know, when it's calling rich, it's not only money rich, but it's internal rich. I would think the three, I would say the three things that changed my life the most would be reading and applying every book I can get my hands on. A formal and informal gratitude practice as well as meditation. Those are the three tools that changed my life. Now I want to tell every entrepreneur and executive that's listening to this or I think that is your audience and my audience is, is if you had all the answers, you had already done it. And a lot of us, the second thing limiting belief we have to overcome in our movement is thinking we have to do it alone. We're scared to ask for help, we're scared to show weakness. And we think if we just work a little bit more and when we have this, we're going to be happy. Well, that's just not true because wherever you go, there you are. And so I would say this is a shout out to folks like you. Is hiring coaches along the way to help me with my blind spots. And I always have to this day. I have coaches. I'm working with two right now. And also always being involved with some sort of peer group. I know you're an eo. I am in two masterminds. One of them is a very private mastermind. And what a mastermind is, is all the minds coming together for one mastermind. To share authentic wisdom, to share, to ask for help and to get guidance on leadership, employees, profitability, but also in our lives and our families is just as important. And so I think coaching, being involved with groups of like minded people who are going in the same direction as I'm going in, as well as the three tools I gave you. Those have been the most profound, life changing tools for me.

Yeah. Yes, yes. And certainly we've covered a number of those tools in depth on meditation, in depth on a gratitude practice. Curious to know what yours look like. What is your gratitude practice?

Yeah. So it's a combination of terrible things. I don't want to go too. This can get a Little technical. So when my feet hit the grounds first thing in the morning, I listen to an 18 minute visualization. Let me tell you what it is. It's related to the gratitudes. 18 minutes. So I, I think if people take their phones to the restroom and I'm not trying to be, everyone goes to the restroom when we wake up. Let's just get over it. That's what human beings do. But I think if you take your phone with you, you have lost your day. I mean, you have completely lost your day. And you've lost it for, I mean, you had destroyed it actually. So that's a whole different conversation. But my feet hit the ground. The first thing I say is thank you. That's literally when my feet hit the ground. I say thank you and I look, I always wake up a lot earlier than my wife and I say thank you to her. Put in my earphones and press play. And it's an 18 minute visualization. The first nine minutes are my intentions slash goals for the quarter in the category of me, my health, my marriage, my spirituality and my business. The next nine minutes of the 18 is the actual things I'm going to do this quarter. So in that is a bunch of affirmations, intentions, actions and gratitudes. So there's those gratitudes that are coming in for 18 minutes. It's just 18 minutes of rewiring my subconscious, the neuroscience in it, and not only the intentions and goals I have, but the actions I'm going to take. And it's filled with gratitudes as well. Then I go downstairs, I work out, then I go to my sauna and meditate. And after that I go upstairs. And here's the actual form of gratitude practice. I write down five or seven gratitudes every morning. Three of them are to myself. Because it's giving me self credit, it's celebrating, it's giving myself self love. To rewire that monkey, I call it the Tommy go round that negative brain that I have. It helps rewire that. It helps me also to appreciate how far I've come. So I write down five to seven gratitudes every day. Three, three of them are to myself. I write them down every single day and then I say them out loud. And then at night, usually with my wife, we say gratitudes out loud too. And we have to do them to ourselves as well to celebrate. And so it helps us be more intimate, helps us be more open, communicative, but it also helps us celebrate how much because we, I mean, we've got so much going on. I'm the founder of the legendary Life movement. She's the CFO of the largest vinyl distribution company in America. We also own a hotel that's on the top of the mountain from where I'm. So we have a hotel that's next door. And so we got a lot going on.

Yeah.

So we have to celebrate how far we come and how much we succeeded in our success. So we have to celebrate that.

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

That's my formal gratitude practice, by the way.

I love it.

I think I have my gratitude. Oh, here. This. I know we're on video. For those of you don't believe me. There's my book. There's my gratitude. That's my actual gratitude journal there. It says. That's pretty cool.

I love it. Yeah. I think a lot of people leave the gratitude for self out. And I found that to be really transform because everything starts with self love. So what can you be proud of? I practice the same thing every day, kind of what am I proud of for what I've. What I've done, but also who I was, not just what I did. And I think this is where people. Someone's like, well, I got this accomplished or I crossed this off the list. But who were you being today that you can be proud of? And what is it then also when you see in others, who were they being that you have gratitude for versus all the stuff that was doing right. And so we get back to our human being versus our human doing and couldn't agree more with the phone. The phone. It's like you're also yourself if you go to your phone, because your phone is not. Is actually not about you. It's like now you're engaging with the external world, not connecting to that relationship with yourself.

Think about what you're doing on your phone real quick. Text someone else's to do list, email 100% someone else's. Now you're at work and you're not concentrating on you, by the way, which is your most important asset is you. Your asset has to be elite for you to be elite or you're on some other productivity suck that's addictive. And it takes you, you know the science, 20 to 20 minutes to an hour to come off of it. And so you've completely lost your day and outsourced it to someone else. And. And I have a saying that your phone is costing you your fortune. That's the truth. I'm off my soapbox, Susan. So thank you. Thank you for letting me share that.

I love that thought. For sure. Well, tell us as we wrap up, what's one thing that you would recommend that our executives and entrepreneurs do tomorrow to really start transforming and being the person they want to be? We've covered some of it already, but I was just curious if you could say one thing you got to do is what?

The one thing I would say you have to do is to become self aware. What does that mean? All of us, you and I talked about this offline. We're all ignorant to something and we're ignorant to our blind spots. We're ignorant to sometimes the mask that we wear to impress others. But even more importantly, we're ignorant to our unknown potential. There's so much more that we could get out of ourselves. And so I think the number one failure in life and leadership is truly knowing thyself and going from ignorance to awareness. So you're aware and awareness will either be an anchor of shame that holds you down if you don't decide to do something about it, or it'll be a platform you stand on if you try to transform. And so I would find a group, a coach, a person to take that like that's the, that's the main thing we do and our executive and entrepreneurial retreats is get give people clarity on who they are, where they're going, who's coming with them in business and life. Give them a huge toolbox of leadership, business life, and relationship mastery while also connecting with others. But the main thing we do at the beginning is take these entrepreneurs from ignorance to awareness and an awareness to transformation. And when you truly start to transform, you can become elite in your leadership. It will just help you be more successful, more productive. I would say that. I would say that's the number one thing. And the number two thing I would say doing tomorrow is own your time, become world class at prioritization and become world class at saying no. That's the two things I would say. Become self aware, get around a human like yourself, work with someone like Susan if you're a large organization, or come work with a group like ours, with other entrepreneurs and executives, to connect, but also to become more aware and to become more elite in your business, leadership and life. Find your tribe to connect to and own your time. That's the two things I would say. And protect and defend your number one asset, which is you. You are your number one asset. You've got to be primed in order to be the best you can be. So I'm off my soapbox.

That's awesome. Well, thank you Tommy, I really appreciate where can people learn more about your work?

Yeah. So check out the book. It's everywhere. It's in the bookstores, it's in the airports. It's legendary. If you're not a reader, I'll read it to you. It is true, true book on self leadership and how to be elite not only in business but in life. It's everywhere. So go check it out. I will read it to you on Audible. If you're not a reader, email me directly or you can go to www.livelegendary.today. www.LiveLegendary.today. we have a whole bunch of adventure experiences coming up. A whole bunch of executive and entrepreneurial retreats. We got a huge event coming up called your life, your legend. Come play with us. Come do an adventure with us. Come to a retreat with us. Come join one of our masterminds and hang around with other high achiever ambitious people. But www.livelegendary today or tommyivelegendary today. And I can't wait to hug your neck and walk this journey with you.

Fantastic. Thank you Tommy. And if you like this episode, you're not going to want to miss my interview with Cameron Herold who discusses his new book second in how to unleash the power of your coo. Let's all lead the way. Hope you enjoyed today's episode and I'd like to point you to the next important step. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new content. I'll see you on the next episode of the Enlightened Executive.

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