Ep.09 | "Teams Fit The Dreams"

Are you ready?

I think so. I don't know.

All right.

Welcome back to the Leaf Fast podcast.

That was a good intro.

That was a good intro. I was actually about to comment compliment your drumming skills. That was pretty impressive.

Air drums are my thing, man. Ear drums are my thing.

I could tell. Hey, I got. I got one question for you right off the bat, Tommy.

I'm just gonna.

I'm just gonna jump right into it.

All right, go ahead.

What is your favorite TV show? I don't even know this about you.

How did you not. How. How's that a thing?

Okay, well, say it, and maybe I do, and I. Oh, okay. I feel dumb. I know you should. I know that. But we don't really talk about TV shows. Like, we just. We just kind of. It just never really comes up.

So. Okay, so my off. The Office is my favorite show that I. The show I watch most often. Right. So I've seen it all the way through five or six times. My favorite TV show ever was this show called Heroes back in the day. And Heroes was awesome. I remember Heroes for two seasons, and then it got crazy, and then it got canceled. I didn't watch.

I mean, I've seen a few episodes. How crazy did it get? How crazy are we talking?

Okay, so people with abilities. You know, superhero type stuff. People with abilities didn't know where they got them from. And then all of a sudden, there was a circus full of people with abilities, and I mean, real circus in a tent, living in a field. Yeah, it got. It got dumb after the circus folks showed up.

That's sad. I hate that. My favorite TV shows, circus folks will do that. That's definitely my most watched one and. Yeah, so. I can't believe I didn't know that. I just want to jump in with a question just right off the bat.

I like this format we have. We have a planned format. He has questions ready to go.

I had a question ready.

Okay, great.

So, yeah, it is Monday, and you guys can't see it. I'm looking outside right now. It's all rainy and gloomy.

It's kind of going between blistering heat and a million degrees and rainy.

It looks like there's a hurricane coming in. Actually, there is a hurricane coming in, but over here, it looks like it's a hurricane. Over here, it's kind of spotty, like, there's some sky. So if I'm.

It's also a billion degrees in Augusta, Georgia.

My God, it is. And you can definitely tell that when the air conditioner in the Building goes out because. And you sit by the windows. You'll bake real quick. Speaking from experience. So. Okay, I've got another question for you.

Okay.

And I like catching you off guard because I feel like I put you in your element.

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

I'm in a great mood today, by the way.

You are in a great mood. And by the way, for those who are not watching, for those who are listening, Tommy's very tan today too. He is.

Tommy took what he rarely does, which is a couple of days off and went to the beach and got.

That's true.

You don't burnt like unreal second degree.

Putting cold frozen Coke cans on your body.

It was so bad. I was in the office the other day with like cans on me, trying to like not itch.

My favorite part was whenever the cans have served their purpose and they're not cold anymore, then Tommy would just pull out of his shirt, crack it open and drink it in the middle of a meeting. Like, I didn't see him doing that. I'm sitting right there next to you. That was my favorite part.

Cheers.

Cheers. So, okay, maybe I have a couple questions for you. We'll just see, depending on the answer, if we want to get into the other ones.

All right, great.

I want to know you, Tommy, what the first thing you thought about when you woke up this morning. Business wise? I'm hoping it's business wise.

Do you want to know the first business thing or do you want to know the first thing I thought about?

I want to know both.

So for me, my typical day. And you'll hear a lot of people, like tons of like productivity people and like happy life people say, don't do this. I will. Literally, before I open my eyes, I'll have my phone in my hand and I'll check email. First thing I do every morning.

Okay.

So my first thoughts are either usually whatever's in my email. And so this morning the email was from Vimeo wanting to know if I wanted a demo of the OTT service. And. And so my initial thought this morning was how do we expand our platform? And can we be on ott, which is over the top video and can we have our own Apple TV channel and all that stuff and would that be valuable to people? So that was. Those were my very, very first waking.

You got that email this morning?

Yeah, because I was. Because at 4am I was doing demos online. And so at 7:30am When I got out of bed, 4am.

I'm just getting tired thinking about that. You were up at 4am yeah, when.

We quit playing video games. Daniel plays Call of Duty with me almost every night. So we were. We quit playing at like, 11 and then.

No, it was later than that, wasn't it? No, no, I hopped off.

Yeah, it was 11. It was 11. So we quit playing around 11. We played for about an hour every night. And so we quit playing around 11. And then I went into my bedroom and cracked open my iPad and did research on video on demand services for four or five hours.

Okay. And that sparked the email.

That sparked the email which sparked my first thought this morning. It's usually a continuation.

So was that your business thought or was that just your regular first thought?

That was my regular first thought. Like, so that's typically what I do every mornings. I'll. I'll, you know, wake up, grab my alarm, you know, grab my phone, open up my email and see what the day squint through. Squint through, sleep and look and see what the day looks like now. Check my calendar and see what I've got going on this morning. We had to take my kids to orientation for their new school, so they're going to. They've got to start a new school this year. So I took my sixth grader and my second grader to orientation this morning, and then before I came into the office, so I got. I got an hour or so work done before I came in and then took them to orientation.

Sixth grade. I can't believe he's in sixth grade already. That's crazy.

Yeah, he was one when we started our first company, and now he's about to be 12.

That's crazy, man. I can't do that. Like, if I look at my emails first thing in the morning, if I look at anything first thing in the morning, I mean, it's like memory dump. It usually takes me about an hour or two to, like, just even recharge enough to do or process anything. But you already know that about me.

Yeah, but everybody's different. Everybody's different. And that's a. If I sleep five hours, I feel great and I can sleep five hours in spurts. And so if I sleep three hours and I'm up for a couple hours and I go back and I get two more hours and get back up, I feel good and I can go the rest of the day. But I have. It's not. It's not a great thing. It's not good. It's not a beneficial thing. It's mostly fomo. There's a lot of real fear of missing, like, I'll miss something if I'm sleeping, so. And I would always much rather be, like, working and pushing and doing some other things. I hate vacation. I hate it. I don't want it.

So weird to hear somebody say that.

It just gives. Vacation is just anxiety with a different name.

Does it almost feel like an obligation because you're so committed to work that you feel like you have to make time for vacation or maybe feel guilty taken away from work?

It's not guilt. I just enjoy what we do. And so I would rather be here than be at the beach, like, sitting. That just feels, like, so boring and unproductive and not doing anything.

And plus, you haven't got a sunburn sitting in your office.

I haven't got a sunburn sitting in my office ever. So that's. That's a benefit. My. My wife, on the other hand, hates that that's how I am.

Oh, yeah.

Because she wants, you know, quality family time and wants me to, like, be able to unplug and put my phone away for a whole week and that kind of thing. And I try to, like, honor that as much as possible, but.

Well, it's funny, though, because you still. I don't think you. You might have once or twice, but you would text me from her phone, hey, this is Tommy.

Yeah, that. That did happen, didn't it?

But you did stick to your rule of putting your phone down.

My phone was away, and so she. I used hers. No, I think, like, it's funny because we'll be. We'll be in the middle of, like, some quiet moment. We'll be on vacation, and, like, we're just sitting on a balcony, staring off into space, and she'll look at me, and she'll go, what are you thinking about? I was just thinking about there's an emerging market we could get into from. And she said that's not what she was thinking about. You know, it's just, like, what a.

Dangerous question to ask. Tommy Wofford. I thought.

I thought you looked great with a tan. And I'm like, no. I was thinking, I wonder if there was an emerging market we could get video demand service into so that we could, you know, maybe pivot into education or something. I don't know. So my brain's just weird.

That's funny. Well, then let me hit you with another question. This is the one I really want to know because I think it's kind of interesting. I mean, I. I would ask anybody this who is a business owner, but, like, we have, you know, two videographers me, Justin. We have an intern. We have a director of public relations here as. As far as, like, the culture goes and stuff. Like, what. How did that happen? How did everything come into play? You know, how did you feel? Like, what did you do to feel like you had the right team, like, the right people in the right places?

Yeah. So, you know, you'll hear a lot of people say, you just got to get the right people on the bus. That only matters, like, if you've got a good bus driver. Luckily, we do, and that's more Andrew than me. I'm more cruise ship director, like, fun director.

You're reading the map.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Andrew's more of, like, the bus driver. Like, he gets us where we're going. He makes, you know, he really, like, has a mind that puts us where we need to be and calls me out when I've, like, gone too far afield and makes sure we stay focused and those types of things. And so for me, like, it's just really just a matter of, like, having an opportunity to pick you up. Like, that was a thing because of the pandemic. And then your. Your job got furloughed, and you were here, and it was like you needed something to do. So come work with us now. It's an opportunity to bring you on full time. I've had a relationship with Justin for a long time, and so he was available. Like, they were about to move to Atlanta, and then the pandemic made that move not happen, and so he was going to be here, so it was an opportunity to pick him up. MacKenzie just graduated from USC and has a degree in PR and was working for another business that we owned and had done a great job there in that role. And this was an opportunity for her to get into her career field, her chosen career field. And so we wanted to make that opportunity work for her. And then Mark, he and I. Mark is 18, just graduated high school. He's our intern. And we were having a conversation about generational wealth and how you could, at his age, at 18, be a millionaire before you were 25, if you would make the right investments. Now, if you decided to work hard for free or nothing and save all your money and get this thing to move into this and whatever. And so we were trying to talk through some of the rich dad, poor dad concepts, and we say that a lot. By the way, I'm a huge fan of rich dad, poor dad, and was talking to Mark about that. I was like, man, if you're 18 and you don't know what you're going to do for the next couple of months. You should just come hang out in my office, come intern for us and let that change, you know, how you see the world. And so, like, we kind of stumbled into people. But I'm a big proponent of your teams have to fit the size of your dreams. Like, I'm a big. Like, I believe that any dream that can be achieved alone is too small. If you can, if you can, if you can. If you can achieve what's in your heart to achieve and you don't need anybody else, you are dreaming too small and a lot. I get pushback from that and I understand the pushback. People are like, well, maybe some people don't have the same capacity that you have, Tommy or Daniel or Mark or anybody else working here. Maybe people don't want to run a multinational conglomerate of businesses that educate and inspire people, because that's sort of my heart. That's fine. That's fine. But you get one life, just one, and it's a mathematical miracle that you're here anyway. The odds of even being conceived is hundreds, astronomical. And the odds of being sort of knit together and surviving the nine months of construction that has to go on inside someone else's body so that you can become a fully developed baby so that you can be born, and the odds of there being no complications and then being born into a family in the US where you have all this opportunity and being bo, like, we can go on and on and I can keep stacking the odds against you, but somehow you're here. And then if your desire is to have some sort of life of generic comfort where you get to retire at 55 and go pick up seashells in Tampa and walk the beach every day and die at 80 and leave a couple hundred thousand dollars to your grandkids, if that's your dream, I just feel like you owe the world more than that. Like, what a waste. I feel that to you not to bang on people that have done that or are doing that. My grandparents did that. My mom and dad had more opportunity than they had. And they're both retired, right? And they spend time with our grandkids and they're living their best life, right? But they worked like crazy hard to get to that. That was an unattainable thing for them. And so for them to attain it required all their effort and all that stuff, right? And so, like, man, go get the spoils of war. But if you are 30, 35, I'll even condition it more. If you are 30 to 40, upper middle class, raised white in America, you owe the world, right? Anything less than your best, I mean, anything less than you getting up every day and hustling, you're in the debt of the world, like the world, because you're one privileged beyond everyone else in the world. For the most part, you have more access to education and advantage than anyone else has. You should be out there crushing it, working your butt off to make a difference and make other people have the same things that you grew up with. Like, that's what you owe the world. And if you're not doing that, then me and you probably have a problem. We should sit down and talk it out. But other than that, I believe that your dream has to be so big that it requires other people. My dream of running an organization that reaches people, not just even in our nation, but worldwide, that educates and inspires them and provides for them the knowledge necessary to take their life and their businesses and their organizations, their ministries, their careers to the next level and find that sort of gold medal moment for themselves. My desire to do that is so much bigger than I would ever accomplish by myself. So it requires you and it requires Justin and Mark and MacKenzie and Andrew, but it probably also requires 40 other people that aren't here yet, right? Or 400 people that aren't here yet. It just does. And so we're not small, we're early. You know, like, my dream's much bigger than this group. We're not small for my dream. We're just early on in the process of seeing it happen. And, and so that's, that's, that's not only how you got here, but why you got here. You got here because dreams are only as. Dreams only ever come true to the scope and the size that you can manifest a team. And so your team is necessary if you're ever going to see your dream. You've got to have the right team. It's a little bit like baseball players, right? So we talk about, we have this illustration that we use in the office and so I'll share it with them. But, you know, it was the baseball illustration that if you had a player and they were at the bat and all, your view, your view was very myopic, very, like narrow. And all you saw was like the guy's jersey and his hands. And then you saw him take his, you know, you'd be like, wow, okay, so he's a baseball player. I get it. You'd be like reading into the situation, you Saw him grip this, you know, grip tighter on the bat, and he kind of put it up and he was looking away and you went, all right, so he must be getting ready to hit. You can see him, like dig his feet in. He's getting. And you're piecing together what you see through your view, and you see him swing out of his shoes and look up in the distance and he takes off running. The observation would tell you, oh, he must have just gotten a hit. Like, you know, he's legging this one out. And he rounds first and you see him round second and round third, and he slides head first and into home, and there's a cloud of dust there. And he looks up and as you. If you can step back from that moment and see this guy on his face in the dirt at home plate in an empty stadium, and there's no one else there, he doesn't have a team. There's no one in the dugout, there's no one, no one he's facing. There's no fans in the stands, there's no crowd to cheer him on. And that's what I feel like a lot of people are doing, is that they put out their activity in a very myopic way. So what you see on Instagram is like their highlight reel, you know. And so what you see on LinkedIn is all the best of. And the reality is that without a team, all success is imaginary. And so he may have the rest of the world thinking that he bats a thousand and that he has the speed of Ken Griffey Jr. And he slid headfirst into home plate and won this game and had an amazing moment. But if you could back away from it, you would realize he did that alone. And that there was no adversary. And because there was no adversary, there can never be glory. And so what should we celebrate? Because this was just your imaginary success and so you don't get credit for that. And so most success, I would say the vast, vast majority of success, things that you should get applauded for, that you should be slapped on the back for, that you should be celebrated publicly for, if it did not happen with a team, I really start to doubt that it actually ever happened. I just don't believe that. If, if you can look up from the dust that you're standing in and you're not surrounded by other people that helped you get there, then there's nothing to celebrate. Probably very few people are 100% self made, no help. They never stand. It stood on the shoulders of other people Those, those people that claim that make me feel like all the red, all the fraud, red flags go up immediately. I think you're a pretend pioneer, you know, and so that's my, that's usually my take on those folks.

Why do you think people stop dreaming? You know, like that's, I understand what you're saying, you know, like the drive and, you know, wanting to give back or want to, you know, have a vision that's bigger than something you can do yourself. And to me that makes, you know, perfect sense. But I do know and I think everybody knows to a degree. People who have given up on something and just stopped, you know, like what, what is, I mean, without even experiencing defeat, they just never go after the prize. Why do you think, why do you think people are like that?

Some people are like that because it's freaking hard. Like you talk about the process, the process is hard. Like, you know, and then I think a lot of it after that after difficulty, because you can, everybody can get over difficulty if you've got the right motivation. And so then I look at it and go, was this hard? Okay, it was hard. So why'd you quit? You didn't have the right motivation, right? So some people have dreams, but then why you have those dreams is important. Just having a dream is important, it has its own value. But understanding why that dream is important to you is equally as valuable. So like for example, some people have dreams, but the only reason they have them is so they can validate themselves, right? And so when a dream then becomes about your own validation, your own self realization, your own importance, you start compromising when it gets hard, right? And so you'll start saying, well, this doesn't really matter. Or if it becomes something that you realize is impossible for you to do, then you feel bad about yourself and then that self defeating cycle starts and then you feel bad and then it looks worse and then you don't believe you can do it and then you feel bad and then it looks worse and you don't believe you can do it and you just run down the toilet and then you're out. Like you're out before you ever get started. And then I think lastly some people, because it really is about self validation and sort of aggrandizing themselves and making themselves look bigger than they actually are, when they realize that it's going to take a team to do it, they realize they have to share the credit.

Oh yeah.

And then you realize that it's more about them than it is about the dream is more about what the dream means to them than it is what the dream means to the world for them. And so when, like, I've got a dream that my children grow up and they're healthy and, you know, self aware human beings. Right. But that, that has nothing to do with me. I'm not going to be like, I was a good parent because my kids did xyz. I'm not trying to realize my own value in my children. My children are important to the world. They're going to make a lasting difference in the earth. And they have a purpose and a value that they haven't realized themselves yet. And so my job as a parent and, well, I'll know I'm successful as a parent if my kids realize what they think their purpose in the world is. That's for the world's benefit, not for mine. And so I'll never stop being a good parent or trying to be a good parent, no matter what the effort is because the reasoning, the why behind the dream is more important than what it means to me personally.

Wow, that's good. I also think something I thought about is the people who have those dreams that are for their own, like, personal gratification. Even if you have a team, that dream is still about you and will still never get off the ground. So I think you covered that pretty well. That was, that was good. I'm gonna throw a card at you real quick. We had a few more minutes.

Yeah. Hey, we can do. This is one of my favorite parts of the whole bit here.

I'll even let you pick the color.

I don't want to. I'll pick an easy color. So I'll close my eyes and I'll pick a color. How about that? Because I'll just pick an easy one because, you know, whatever. So here, just.

You pick two. But. Okay, we might do two. Let's just do one for.

All right. Whoa.

I don't know if that. This isn't even a real card.

Oh, see? So only picked one. There you go.

Picked one. I think I've asked you this before. Let's see if it's changed. Oh, I know your answer too. Or I knew your answer. Then what do you need to do by the end of the year to make this year meaningful?

Yeah. So my answer before is still my answer today, which is I've done enough to make this year meaningful. Every day. I do enough to make this year meaningful. I'm not chasing a meaningful year. I'm just chasing a string of meaningful days. Like, I don't get up and think about what do I do that affects the next 12 months? I think about, like, what do I do that affects the next 10 years, 20 years, 30 years? Like, I could have easily. I could have easily not gone to orientation for my kids today. I chose that. I chose that because it's the first day in a new school. I chose that because my second grader, who's normally like rambunctious and out there, was a little nervous and he was quiet and I saw him change and I wanted to be there. It's a private school this year, which is new for us. We did public school and then we did homeschool. And so now we're trying all the things. We're trying all the things, right? And so we just want to, want to get an education for our kids that. And not that public or private was better because they were in a fantastic public school. We were very happy. And then it's one of those, like, my dream is for my other people around me to be satisfied. My wife wanted to homeschool, so we homeschooled. And now we have different. After a year of doing that and the coronavirus and everybody else. So now we have different priorities. And we want our kids to be back in a school setting that allows them to have more social interaction because we saw that was something that was missing and now. But we also want people to be in a school that aligns with our values and puts them around students that are going to be challenging them to be their best and teachers. And so we made that selection this year to go to a different school. And I wanted to be there so that they would know that I cared about that selection, that my wife knew I cared about that. And it wasn't, you know, just another to do list item that will affect the next 10 years.

How long was orientation?

It was an hour.

You were there for an hour and you affected the next 10 years.

I made, I affected in the next 10 years of my kids life by making the decision in a moment. Yeah, just being there. Was just being there. I mean, I was answering emails and text and like, you know, my kids for probably 30 minutes of it were sitting by themselves off in a room and I was meeting with an administrator. So it wasn't even like, ooh, I had this great quality time with my kids. I just made a decision to show them that it was important what they were doing. And that decision will affect the next decade. So when I say, like, I'm not trying to, like, do something grand this today, that's gonna Affect the rest of the year. It's not what I mean. Cause the little decisions add up. Just like the days add up to make years and the years add up to make decades. It's really about saying what's the most impactful use of my time right now. And that changes, it changes from moment to moment. Andrew has said recently he has pivot fatigue. Because in our business model we've changed so much. The pricing model, we've changed the subscriptions model, we've changed how you interact with lead fast online. We've done all that so many times and even the last 90 days. But it's just about making the most impactful decisions we can right now.

No, that's good. It's good to know your answer didn't change because it's a 10 year. Focusing on 10 years, I think in two weeks if it changed I'd be like, ah, got you.

No, a 10 year range I think is like the minimum. You really start evaluating your decisions when they have to have 10 year impact.

That seems to be the question everybody asks, like where do you see yourself in 10 years? Or what do you like that kind of deal? Yeah, I get it.

And you don't have to have an answer where you see yourself in 10 years. Like there's an interview question. So there's a lot of people that probably got laid off because of the pandemic. And you're going to do interviews, right? You're going to go and they're going to ask you, where do you see yourself in five years? What's your five year plan look like? And I can tell you the answers that will get you the job, but I can tell you the best answer for yourself, right? So the best answer, I think for yourself, where do you see yourself in five years? Just a little bit further along version of where I am now. Like I'm not waiting for me to become something in five years. Like I'm happy with myself right now. Like, and if you're, if you're struggling with like being like, you need to get to XYZ to like realize yourself to like, you know, I have this dream of being a CEO and I'm just going to keep pushing and feel unfulfilled until that happens. I have the dream of getting a promotion at my job and that job's not going to fulfill fulfilling until that happens. Every day you spend in that mental cycle is a day further away from achieving what you want because people are drawn to satisfied, fulfilled people. And so when you can realize that like no like these things, these progress marks, these bars that we set for each other aren't self defining, they're goals. But if I reach them or I don't reach them, it does not change who I am as a person. It just doesn't. If you can be satisfied and happy with the person that you were made to be. Like, those types of things are the things that set you free to achieve. Other than that, they're just roadblocks. Like, they just always are. And so my answer has always been, where do you see yourself in five years? Very much the way I am now, maybe with just a little bit more authority or a little bit more responsibility, because. Right. And I always go in to say it because right now I feel like I'm living my best self. Like I'm happy with where I am in life. I'm super happy with the opportunity to come work here, you know, like, so, like that's how I would answer that question. And I'm excited about the challenges that over the next 90 days, so much so that I'm not really focused on the next five years because I want to be the best me right now.

Sure.

And that's, that's an honest answer. You know, I've been in interviews and in my younger years, when I was full of salt, young Tommy, young Tommy, when I wasn't 40, when I was 25 and 30, and people said, you know, where do you see yourself in five years? And I've said, with your job. You know, that's a. That's an arrogant thing to say, but that's something that they actually teach you to say in some interview schools is to say, like, I'm gonna have your job to set a high standard and say the sky's the limit for me. You know, that kind of deal. And one, that's just not an honest answer because you don't know what it took to get to that place. And so you can't possibly know. But honestly, it's also. It just says that I'm not fulfilled as a person until I've done xyz. And nobody wants to work with that guy, man. No one.

That's like, I feel like we could do a whole new podcast just on breaking it down. For me personally. No, I'm just kidding. But that's good. These were good answers, man.

Well, I try. I mean, I don't come prepared, but I do try to come.

I think you're always prepared. You just don't know. You are. Real life music. All right, thanks for listening, guys. Don't forget we are on Instagram. We're on Facebook. Eadfastco is our handle. We also have a website, leadfastco.com where you can get much more content like this and we'll be updating very soon and we'll see you next time.

Hey, wait, wait, wait. So Daniel has this idea for a business and it's called brip.

You read my show notes.

I read your show notes. It's called brip B R I P. And if you comment on our YouTube or if you. If you'll send in to lead fast code that you want to know about brip, we'll tell you all about it.

Will we?

It's. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Is it safe? We'll start a Kickstarter, okay. For Brip and they can. They can help fund it.

Everybody who comments is going to be at my official launch. So yeah, just remember that you heard.

It here first, guys. All right, now we're out.

Later. See you guys.