Episode 240 – Tony Everett

Richard Matthews: [00:00:00] So if the common enemy

is that fixed mindset

then the flip side

you know, just like super power

and the fatal flaw

the flip side of the common enemy

is the driving force

it’s what you fight for, right?

So you know just like Spider-Man

fights to save New York

or Batman fights to save Gotham

or Google fights to index and categorize

all the world’s information

I wanna find out what it is that

you’re fighting for in your business

maybe as you are moving into

this transition and the new people

you’re working with

what is your new mission?

Tony Everett: Great question

and I believe it’s the power of

curiosity, passion, and purpose

I think if people were more curious it

would create more passion in the world

and then more people would be living their

life on purpose

and so I think that’s a really important

starting point

is what are you curious about?

What do you wanna learn more about?

What intrigues you?

Because if you can find that thing

then you can step into it

and suddenly it’s developing a passion

and the passion then wants you

to learn [00:01:00] more about it

and it wants you to master it

and so you are then learning

and creating passion

and mastery of the same thing

which I then think will really lead people

to stepping into this world with a purpose

and so I heard the other day

a statement called the most

transformative purpose

and I love the idea that there

is a purpose out there

which is your most

transformative purpose

because that’s all about

change, transition, learning, growth

and it’s a journey

​

[00:02:00]

Richard Matthews: Hello and welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews, and today I have the pleasure of having on the line Tony Everett. Tony, are you there?

Tony Everett: I am. Yes.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Glad to have you here. I know before we were get started here. You were telling me you’re in Orange County, California starting to warm up here. We’re visiting this part of the country for seeing family this time of the year, and it is roasty toasty. I’m actually like sweating. So,

Tony Everett: It is getting warm.

Richard Matthews: It is fun for the wintertime. Yeah. California winter for you, you can still sweat in January. So what I wanna do before we get too far into the interview is just do a brief introduction of who you are, and then we’ll dive in and talk a little bit about your [00:03:00] story.

So, Tony, you are the founder of my personal best coaching where you are working on inspiring individuals to discover their purpose, ignite their passion, unlock their limitless potential. So what I wanna do before we get too far into the interview is let’s talk about what you’re known for. Sets up who you are now, what your business is like, who do you serve, what do you do for them?

Tony Everett: For sure. Yeah. So it’s really about individuals who are struggling and confused, lost with a lack of direction and purpose. I’ve been mainly working with athletes in that world. And the athletes are the athletes who are coming to the end of their career and not knowing what comes next.

But I found with working with athletes that it’s a bigger issue as well, just in the business world where people not liking their jobs, not liking their careers, and they don’t know where to go and what to do next. And so what I’m really looking to do is plug them back into that youthful passion that they used to have.

The thing that they love to do. The thing that just lit them up. Plug them back into that and then get them to [00:04:00] take that into the world. So they’ve got a little bit more life and energy and joy for the world around

Richard Matthews: Yeah, I know that’s pretty common in the business world after a sale of a business too. Like when, if you spent, you know, 5, 10, 15 years building a business up and then you exit. And then you end up in that same sort of boat like an athlete who’s at the end of their career, like, what do we do now?

Right. We did the thing, now we do the rest in our life.

Tony Everett: Yeah, and it’s a lot to do with identity, right? We’ve got our identity as an athlete, an identity as a business owner, whatever that identity is. We get stuck into that, and we believe that’s all that we’ve got to look forward to for the of our lives when really there are other identities that we can plug into and we can just shed these things and just into a bigger purpose than just what’s in front of right now.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, I know one of the things that I’ve always focused on is the idea that everything in life has a season. Right? And you know this change, and that’s okay. It’s okay to step into the next season and what, that brings you, whether it’s [00:05:00] relationships or goals or things that you’re working on.

And you know, sometimes those transitions can be difficult, but if you are if you were just aware that everything is seasonal that it helps, at least it helps me with those transitions.

Tony Everett: Right, absolutely. I’m in the midst of one myself, which is interesting.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. My wife and I are working on that this year. We’ve been traveling in an RV for seven years and we’re working on buying a sailboat and transitioning to traveling that way. And it’s gonna be huge. A huge change in everything from all of our routines with our kids, to all of our routines with our business.

So it’s gonna be a big shift. And so, you know, we’ve a lot of prepping for that just knowing that the transition gonna be coming.

Tony Everett: Yeah. Fun times ahead then.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. So what I wanna dive into then is your origin story. One of the things, we talk about this on this show all the time, is that every good comic book hero has an origin story.

It’s the thing that made them into the hero they are today, and we wanna hear that story. Were you born a hero or were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to get into business and become a coach? Or did you start in a job and eventually become an entrepreneur?

Basically, we wanna know where did you come from?[00:06:00]

Tony Everett: Yeah. Definitely not born a hero. I was born in England, actually. I was born in Germany, but lived in England. So I was born in Germany, moved to England when I was very small. Mom and dad grew up in that council house tenancy of England, which is basically a project would be the similar thing over here in America.

So grew up with very little and kind of felt like I struggled. Through that life and just fell into things and was just constantly building an idea of who I was and where I was going. Fell into sales quite early and became fairly good at selling stuff that kind of fit my personality. And then I spent some time in the Navy and came to America with the Navy.

And I said back then that one day I’m gonna live in America. I’m gonna move here one day. And sure enough, an opportunity came along my way and I jumped at it and moved over here. But even still then kind of lost, didn’t know where I was going. Confused, [00:07:00] directionless, just kinda selling to get by.

And then I found this idea of youth coaching, so, coaching kids soccer and it lit me up. So didn’t get bit by a radioactive spider, but certainly got bit by the bug of coaching kids and the joy that brings. And that was the starting point that new with me. It was something that I loved to do. I grew up playing sports, so I would, I loved to be around it, but I didn’t know that I loved coaching it.

So, that was how I got to where I am today effectively.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. So, and was it always soccer that where you were coaching or did you coach in different sports?

Tony Everett: No, it was always soccer. You’ve gotta know your limitations when you’re into these things. I love sports, but I don’t know a great deal about basketball and football and the rest of the sports in America, but I do love the game of soccer and I’ve been around it all of my life. I never played at a level, but I’ve always played.

And so I got it. And what was more [00:08:00] important when I stepped into coaching youth soccer is my focus on the kids as holistically, it wasn’t just about skills and drills, it was about their, well-being social-emotional character, education, that type of stuff. So as I stepped into Coaching Club, soccer out here in America, I found this desire to want to connect with kids and help them become their best version of themselves. So that’s when I started a nonprofit, which was Pure Game. And I’ve been running that for the last 17 years. And it’s all about just the joy of the game.

Positivity, encouragement, really using my strengths to build into these young kids.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. So it was finding something that you were passionate about that really helped drive your career. So what I wanna talk about is over the course on that career the superpowers that you developed, right? So every iconic hero has superpowers, whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by their genius intellect, or, [00:09:00] you know, super strength in the real world.

Heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that they were born with or they developed over the course of their career. And the way I like to frame it from my guess, if you look at everything, all the skills you developed over your career, there’s probably a common thread that ties all of those skills together, and that common thread is probably where you find your superpower.

So what do you think your superpower is? In this coaching world and helping people deal with the transitions in their life.

Tony Everett: Yeah, it’s I’ve put a lot of thought to this actually over the course of time because I moved from coaching kids, youth soccer, to coaching adults in life transitions and all of that good stuff. And one of the things that I’m really good at is connecting with people.

And I mean that by when I sit and talk to them I’ve got this ability to put them at ease early on in a conversation so they feel relaxed and able to communicate. And within that there’s the encouragement and positivity and seeing the best in people. So [00:10:00] seeing the superhero in other people, but the superpower is definitely putting people at ease and making them feel relaxed in themselves.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, that’s really good. So making people feel at ease and relaxed in themselves and it’s an interesting superpower. I’ve never had anyone say that on this show before. And so I’m curious just from your standpoint how do you think you developed that superpower.

And what do you think that actually does for people? Like how does that impact their outcomes?

Tony Everett: That’s a good question. I think it was just developed. With, throughout my years I’ve always struggled. I’ve always had to work hard to get to where I’m at. It’s always been this grind and overcoming situations and you can’t really do that on your own, you’ve gotta do that with people.

And so I think it was just developed. In the arena of connecting with people and having them, when you connect with someone, they’re typically on [00:11:00] guard because they don’t trust you, right? And so, they typically wanna know, well, what do you want from me? But if you can go into a conversation and meeting someone with the ability to put them at ease and say, Hey, I’m not after anything.

I’m just here to connect wanna which then leads me into what does it do for them? What it does for them is it helps them understand that they can look at themselves rather than holding a wall up against me, if that makes sense. They don’t have to be on guard. It’s, say that again, sorry.

Richard Matthews: It allows them to take their mask off and just be themselves.

Tony Everett: Yes, there you go. That’s exactly it. You phrased that better than I could ever.

Richard Matthews: So it’s a form of empathy then where you can just step aside and be like, Hey, this space is for you. Right? And you can help them move, you know, work through whatever it is they’re working through.

Tony Everett: Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s the superpower, but the gifts that go with that is [00:12:00] curiosity, listening being present in that space and just being with them. Yeah.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, I always call that being ignorant and curious, right? Even if you know everything there is to know, when you sit down with someone, you can be ignorant and curious.

Tony Everett: Yeah. Yeah, for sure you can.

Richard Matthews: And show for them and it’s how you give a good interview, right? You know, if you show up and do like these things, it’s like, even if you know a lot about coaching, you can be ignorant about coaching for 20 minutes while you listen to someone and understand who they are and what they’re doing.

And it sounds like that’s what you’re doing. It’s just like, Hey, you know, you, I know a lot about soccer and I know a life transitions. I’ve done this a lot before. But you can just be ignorant and let them, tell their story. Let them be who they are. ’cause a lot of times they already know the answers. They just need to. uh. ‘

Tony Everett: Yeah, absolutely. It’s about emptying your cup, right? If I come into this meeting with a full cup, then I’ve got no space for curiosity. But if I actually can empty a cup first and then sit there and say, that’s interesting, tell me more.

Richard Matthews: Absolutely. So I wanna talk about the [00:13:00] flip side then, right? Every superpower has the flip side, the fatal flaw. And so, you know, every Superman has his kryptonite. Wonder woman can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad. And you probably have a flaw that’s held you back in your business.

For me it was a couple of things. I struggled with perfectionism, right? Kept me from shipping product. And I also struggled with a lack of self-care, which basically amounted to not having a good relationship with my time and my boundaries with my clients and stuff like that. But I think more important than what the flaw is how have you worked to overcome it so that you could continue to grow your business and continue to help your people succeed.

Tony Everett: Yeah. Mine is from my childhood just growing up I wouldn’t say with poverty, but in that world of lack was my lack of self-worth. I never really believed in myself. I never believed I was good enough. I never believed I was worthy to be here, present in front of you, talking.

And so that was, that’s always held me back. Put that very big glass ceiling over my head that stopped me from stepping into[00:14:00] my biggest potential and how I’ve overcome that is a lot of reading, a lot of studying of content out there, about self-worth and just the self right, and that kind of stuff.

So learning, being open to learning, being open to the fact that, hey, I’m here. I’m good enough, I’ve got my gift, and I don’t have to compare that with you or with anyone else around me. I’m good in my line and that’s what’s helped me kind of overcome that.

Richard Matthews: everyone struggles with a little bit is that self-worth or that imposter syndrome. And there’s, you know, the problem we have is we have access to everyone on the planet right now, and there’s always a bigger fish, right? You know, there’s always the Elon Musk of every industry, right.

Whatever it is and you’re like, I’m not that good. Right. And so we tend to want to compare ourselves with other people. And there’s probably some evolutionary reason for that. That’s, you know, there’s some value to it. But what we need to couch that with [00:15:00] is the idea that like, no matter what it is that you do, there is someone who is suffering from a problem right now.

That you and your delivery and your history and your story and your perspective will help them solve. Right? And if you don’t actually. You know, buy into that value, buy into your own value, you won’t be able to help them. Right? And that’s a it’s both simultaneously a sobering thought and a freeing thought to realize like, no, I have to get out and put my message and my value into the world.

Tony Everett: Yeah, and there’s I talk a lot about this. I am being two of the most powerful words that we can use because whatever follows. Typically becomes a truth statement but you can’t just change something. So you can’t just say, you know, I am not worthy to, oh, I am worthy ’cause our brain understands the difference between the two and we’ll fight you against it just because of past experiences.

But starting a sentence with I am becoming allows you to grow into something that you wanna be. I mean, it’s a journey and that’s what I’ve, been focused [00:16:00] on for that 8-10 years I am becoming always growth with that which is healthy.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, my martial arts instructor, he always talks about, you know, practice. You know, you hear the phrase practice makes perfect, and he’s like, nope, practice makes permanent. And so that, it just strikes me in the same kind of way that you’re like, Hey, I am becoming a martial artist, I am becoming a sailor. I am becoming a better coach. Right? And it allows you to practice the idea that you’re in a constant state of improvement, right? Because that’s what practice does it makes permanent.

And so when you say something with vitality like, I am a martial artist, then you’re done. There’s no growth there. And so, I really like that phrasing of I am becoming as a way to build an identity.

Tony Everett: Yeah, very healthy for young people to understand.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s interesting ’cause like you hear a lot in the coaching space about learning how to build an identity, right? ’cause everything flows from your identity. It flows from what you’ve decided you are, right? And I really like that idea of [00:17:00] building progress and journey into your identity.

Tony Everett: Yes.

Richard Matthews: Just with the language that you use.

Tony Everett: Yeah, language is really important. Very important with how you say things for sure.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. So then I wanna talk about your common enemy, right? Every superhero has an arch nemesis, right? It’s a thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world. In the world of business, it takes on many forms, but generally speaking, we’re putting in the context of your clients and it’s a mindset or a flaw that they have, that you’re constantly have to fight to overcome.

Right, so that you can actually get them the results they came to you for in the first place. So, you know, perhaps we’re talking, you know, you just started working in the business world, so maybe this is your adult athletes who are transitioning into their professional lives afterwards. Right.

What’s a mindset or a flaw that you constantly have to fight against in that space to actually help them achieve that transition?

Tony Everett: Yeah, it’s, that’s an easy one. It’s a fixed mindset. It’s this idea that this is who I am. I’m in this lane, I’m in this thing and I can’t do that. Oh yeah, but you don’t know my story and I can’t do that. [00:18:00] And they’re very fixed in their thinking that they can’t change, they can’t move. My story has made me who I am.

I’m an athlete, for instance and so fixed mindset holds people back and we all have fixed mindset to a degree, but really understanding where your fixed mindset turns up is very important. If you wanna move into a journey of growth and development because fixed mindsets don’t work in growth and development they say, this is as good as it gets. I’m stuck here. Yeah.

Richard Matthews: That’s the whole thing we just talked about, right? Is when you say, I am an athlete, it’s finished. Right? It’s done. Like you do anything about that. So if you can add that, becoming a portion, right? The journey portion you can shift what you want to do. And I know it’s like I’ve seen that come up in my own life.

Right? You know, we, I told you before, we’ve been traveling for seven years, right? And it’s like, so part of that identity, part of my story currently when I go out and I, you know, speak on stages or I talk with people is, you know, I [00:19:00] am a full-time traveler. That’s part of who I am, right?

I’m a dad, I am a husband, and I know that some of those things are seasonal, right? As eventually my wife and I will settle down, eventually our kids will move out. And so, you know, I won’t be a full-time parent anymore, and I won’t be a full-time traveler anymore. And I already see it, my head that thinking that like, hey, when I get to those stages.

I’ll have to start changing the language I use to describe myself. And I feel that uncomfortableness already, right? And I, even if it’s like 15 years in the future, right? And it’s just an awareness of how important your language is and how important that story is. You tell yourself, right? The story you tell about yourself.

Tony Everett: Yeah, and it also comes down to that cup I model, right? If you believe your cup is full. Then there is no learning anymore. And if you go into a situation believing you know everything about that situation, your cup is full. So you’ve gotta empty that cup to be curious and to learn more.

And so a full cup or a growth mind or a fixed mindset of the same [00:20:00] kind of idea, they just stuck and that’s it. And there’s nothing to do beyond that. And we’ve gotta either empty the cart or go, oh, there is a potential. I’m not good at that yet. Changes things into a growth mindset.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, one of my favorite metaphors for that is the fruit on the vine, right? You never wanna be ripe ’cause if you’re ripe, the only way to go is rotten. But if you’re ripening, you still have more to go.

Tony Everett: I like that. I like that idea. I like that there’s a good book out there on all of this “It’s Life is in the Transitions”. I can’t remember the but “Life is in the Transitions”. There’s a good book about all of that idea and that content.

Richard Matthews: We’ll see if we can find a link to that and put it in the resources for the episode. But yeah, “Life is in the Transitions”. That’s, you don’t even need to know anything else. Just that’s where everything happens, it’s true.

Tony Everett: Yeah.

Richard Matthews: So if the common enemy is that fixed mindset, then the flip side, you know, just like super power and the fatal flaw, the flip side of the common enemy is the driving force.

It’s what you fight for, right? So, you know, just like Spider-Man fights to save New [00:21:00] York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. I wanna find out what it is that you’re fighting for in your business. Maybe as you are moving into this transition and the new people you’re working with, what is your new mission?

Tony Everett: Great question. And I believe it’s the power of curiosity, passion, and purpose. I think if people were more curious it would create more passion in the world. And then more people would be living their life on purpose.

And so I think that’s a really important starting point, is what are you curious about? What do you wanna learn more about? What intrigues you? Because if you can find that thing. Then you can step into it and suddenly it’s developing a passion. And the passion then wants you to learn more about it, and it wants you to master it. And so you are then learning and creating passion and mastery of the same thing, which I then think will really lead people to stepping into this world with a [00:22:00] purpose.

And so I heard the other day a statement called the most transformative purpose. And I love the idea that there is a purpose out there, which is your most transformative purpose, because that’s all about change, transition, learning, growth and it’s a journey.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, I like that. And I know one of the things that I’ve always preached to my children and occasionally to my clients when they ask, is this idea that passion is not a thing that you discover it’s a thing that you develop. Right? And so my phraseology for that is mastery begets passion.

And I think for whatever reason, there’s a lot of people on the world that are out searching for a passion. I don’t know what I’m passionate about. I don’t know what I’m passionate about. And what I’ve always told people is like, if you want, like, you develop passion through mastery. And so pick something I love your thought and it’s something that I should probably start incorporating is the idea that curiosity is the beginning of mastery.

And mastery is where passion comes from. So start with your curiosity. What do you wanna [00:23:00] learn about? What do you want to develop skills in? And start to developing those skills. And you’ll find the things that, like, things that you actually are willing to develop skills in that you build mastery for will create passion, right?

And then the more you master it, the more you become passionate about it. I like that whole thought process.

Tony Everett: And it’s not that hard to do when you think about it. You know, when you think about curiosity, you could start creating a curiosity list and just start writing things down that you are curious about. What is it about? I did this myself and I found that human behavior, thought process, decision making, psychology, all of these things were in my curiosity list.

You know, why did you start traveling in the first place? What drove you to do that? And then, so I’m curious about all of those decisions and behaviors. And then when you get the list and you kind of put them into categories and then put them over each other, those categories, [00:24:00] there’s overlaps, and if you can play and look to find mastery in those overlaps, then suddenly you find the passion.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, so what’s interesting there is I’ve got a lot of experience in that whole exploring the curiosity side. And what I want to give people is permission to be curious about things that you will find out after you play with them that you don’t actually care, right?

And that’s okay. It’s part of that process. And so like, just as an example for you, since we started traveling, I’ve gotten into a lot of things. Everything from plumbing work to electrical work, to, I learned to do fiberglass, repair. I taught myself piano. I went through drawing courses, learned to do drawing. I learned to do calligraphy.

And, you know, my son and I are learning to windsurf right now, martial arts. We’re learning martial arts and so like, I’ve always got at least one, if not two or three things that are outside of work that I’m just constantly exploring curiosities. And I found things that I, you know, I did a cabinet making right?

I redid all the cabinets in our house and built a desk and built a bunk bed and built [00:25:00] a table and built some other things. And you find out over the course of doing these things that like, okay, I will do cabinet making if I need to, but it’s not something I’m ever gonna become passionate about.

Right? Same thing with calligraphy. I really enjoyed like learning the process of calligraphy and getting through it. I bought all the cool tools and learned how to do it, and spent three or four months playing with it and I was like. This is just not for me but then some of the other things like martial arts has really stuck, right?

And same thing with like windsurfing has really stuck and learning the piano has stuck. But like drawing did not, I went through, I got, you know, went through a couple of drawing courses and got really good at a couple of different styles of it. And I was just like, I just don’t enjoy this process. Right?

And it’s, you know, but you can explore a curiosity and find out. Okay, that’s not for me. And even get to the point where you’re good at it, right? And still not like it. And that’s okay. And that’s why you keep that open to just keep exploring your curiosities and seeing things. And then the other part of that is if you keep that, do keep doing that, you end up with this whole book of skills

Tony Everett: Yeah.

Richard Matthews: You can do things there, right? Like I can draw if I need to draw, if my daughters wanna sit down and draw, I can, like I know enough about it to do [00:26:00] it with them and to do it well. Right? Even as though it’s not my thing, it’s not where my passion is. So that’s, I wanna give people permission to explore without having to find your passion every time.

Tony Everett: Yes. Yeah, I did the drawing thing as well. You got further down the road than I did. I took a couple of drawing classes and as I was working through the drawing class, I was like. Nope, this one isn’t for me.

Richard Matthews: That one’s not for me. Yeah. And it’s funny ’cause like you’ll get to different places with things, right? So like the cabinet making, I went, you know, the woodworking stuff I got pretty far right? Like I made like 30 different cabinets. I made a table, I made benches with drawers on ’em. I did drawer boxes.

I made a whole custom desk. I made a, like a custom cutting board, and I did all this stuff and like, and I was like, I was enjoying it. And then like after I was done with all those things, I was like, yeah that’s not for me. That was it, like maybe occasionally in the future, like I have the skills now, but it’s just not something that I’m going to spend much time doing.

Tony Everett: Right. But then the sad thing is how many people get to that point? And then look back at it and go, well, that [00:27:00] was a waste of time because I’m not doing anything with it now. And that’s the saddest part about the curiosity piece is they, people feel that if I go into it and don’t make it my passion, then I’ve just wasted my time.

And that’s not true. It’s not that you’ve wasted your time, you’ve learned a skill that wasn’t your passion. Brilliant now, let’s look at something else that could be a passion, right? Don’t look at it as that was a waste of time. Think of it as that was time well invested. That taught me something.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. And one of the things that I’ve always looked at, and maybe this is helpful for our listeners ’cause this is, of any of the interviews we’ve done, this is probably one of the more important discussions, is learning how to explore your own curiosities and be okay with the outcomes of them.

Right. It’s a huge part of just the human experience in general and the path to success in anything starts with this curiosity piece. And so I want people to understand that, like, it’s not a waste of time ’cause even if you know, you get as far as I did with say woodworking, right?[00:28:00]

It’s a, you have trained the brain pathways for learning, right? And the more you do that, the more you train those brain pathways for learning, the easier it is for you to pick up skills. The shorter the path to mastery becomes on any other thing that you do. Right? And because it’s the same learning pathways every single time.

So, you know, you heard me mention five or six different things, or maybe, you know, at this point it’s probably like 10 or 15 different skills that we, you know, that I’ve gotten fairly good at over the last, you know, half a decade or more. And each time you do that the time to mastery becomes shorter because you are training a really important skill and it’s that metascale of learning how to learn.

And that’s a really useful skill. So no matter what it is that you’re exploring, the passion, if you go through that process, it’s never a waste of time. Right? It’s always worthwhile.

Tony Everett: Yeah, a hundred percent. I’m doing something really silly right now, but I think that it’s, I’m curious about it. I’m teaching myself to write with my left hand and it’s the most awkward thing in the world, and it looks [00:29:00] like a spider’s crawled across my page, but I’m working at it because of the brain pathways that I’m hoping that it will create.

I have no idea where it’s going, but I’m curious about the journey that I’m currently on. I don’t know.

Richard Matthews: I almost exactly the same thing I told you I was learning piano, right? And so my biggest problem with the piano is I can’t get my left hand and my right hand to work together. And in order to play the piano, they have to work together. And so the skill that I picked up to get my left hand to work together is I started to learn to juggle.

I went to a juggling class, I hired a juggling coach, and I learned to juggle and I can juggle now, right? And I practice, you know, a couple times a week juggling. And what’s interesting about that is it has had a direct impact on my ability to play with my left hand on the piano. And so it’s, you just, you know, finding new and interesting ways to build those brain pathways and to learn things.

So, yeah, I get that.

Tony Everett: Yeah. Yeah. By the way, here’s an interesting fact. [00:30:00] Juggling also helps with the speed in which you read. I took a speed reading class ’cause I wanted to increase my reading speed and again, ’cause I wanna read more and juggling because it gets you to focus on that non-space. In between the juggling balls in your hands because you’re watching the non-space.

Yeah. It increases your ability to read faster.

Richard Matthews: That’s fascinating. I didn’t know that I was just trying to get my left hand to be as coordinated as right hand. And it, that’s, it has been the most practical, like for whatever reason, practicing it on the piano doesn’t seem to help, but practicing it with the juggling does help and then it shows up in the piano.

And so that’s interesting. I did something similar with the learning to write with your left hand. I have you ever heard of the Dvorak keyboard? So like we use the QWERTY keyboard, the key Q-W-E-R-T-Y. the Dvorak is D-V-O-R-A-K, where the keys are all arranged differently. And they are arranged where the most used letters are on the home [00:31:00] row instead of the way they’re arranged on the keyboard now.

And so I went through a whole phase where I was trying to learn the Dvorak keyboard. Not because I knew I could change the keyboards and all the devices that I use, although nowadays with software keyboards, you can, but just ’cause I wanted the, that process of like retraining your brain to learn something.

And yeah I imagine that’s a similar reason why you are trying to learn left-handed writing and not that you’re ever expecting your left hand to be as good as your right hand, but just training that brain pathway.

Tony Everett: It is exactly that, and I’m curious about where it goes and what it helps me with. And so we’ll see. It’s an interesting pathway.

Richard Matthews: Yeah.That’s fascinating, Um, oh, that’s a really cool discussion but I wanna talk, more practical, right? We talk on this show about your your hero’s tool belt. And just like every superhero has their awesome gadgets like batarangs or web slingers or, you know, laser eyes, I wa nna talk about the top one or two tools that you use every day that you couldn’t live without in your business.

It could be anything from your notepad to your calendar, to something you use for your marketing tools or something you use for your product delivery with your actual [00:32:00] clients. Anything you think is essential to getting your job done on a daily basis.

Tony Everett: That’s a very good question. I would say the first one the thing that I use a lot is the, I am becoming work. I do that all of the time ’cause I wanna know, I want the growth. So I try and remind myself that is a tool for me to grow. Mindfulness, meditation, journaling that my time in the morning is sacred time.

So that is a tool that I’ve developed that I could not do without, I think nowadays. A more recent carry on.

Richard Matthews: I say let’s talk a little bit more about the I am becoming then, and so let’s talk about how you actually use that practically in your life. What do you actually do with that? Is that like part of your morning affirmations? Is it part of your meditations? Do you put ’em up on like your screen notepads?

Like how do you actually input that I am becoming statements into your daily life?

Tony Everett: Yeah. So yes, I do it in my morning routine. And I look at the journey that I am on. A good [00:33:00] example of this is reading. I never considered myself a reader. And so I would never read, I would always kind of pick up a book and dabble with it. And it took me ages to read a book. And so I put this, I am becoming in place and then I gave myself a score sheet from one to five.

One being that I either didn’t read or maybe read a couple of words. Two was I read an entire paragraph three was I read an entire page. Four was I read a couple of pages, and five was I read a whole chapter, and so I would then score myself. Daily on this progress of my reading.

And every day I would put one or two, three or four. And then over the course of time, I was then marking myself as four or five. So it was this growth journey that I could see happening in front of me, of my reading capacity. And this I am becoming, became a [00:34:00] journey of ones, twos, threes, fives on a constant daily basis. That allowed me to then be proud of the progress I was making.

And so I could just track what I was doing. That was one of the ones that I’ve got meditation, journaling when I started that I’m becoming a someone who meditates, I would grade myself on whether I meditated on in the morning, in the evening, whatever it was.

Richard Matthews: And so you’re sort of combining the I am becoming statements with journaling to just sort of keep track of how you are becoming.

Tony Everett: Yeah. Yeah. And then once you start regularly scoring fives, then you can kind of put that process to one side. You don’t need to, ’cause then it just becomes laborious because I now read every single day. So I am a reader, but I’m continually growing in my reading capacity. And then I’ll find something else to, I’m becoming a left-handed writer.

So did I write a sentence, a word, a sentence, a [00:35:00] paragraph, right? It’s that type of, it’s that type of growth that helps me see progress and helps me see the journey unfolding in front of me.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, that’s really fascinating. So we, I do something sort of similar and it’s not it’s more on the, I guess the affirmation and just top of mind sort of thing. And so like at the current moment, I told you my wife and I are working on buying a sailing boat. And so I have I have a little, you know, the little photo, what do you call it? The photo widget on my phone that’s taking up the top, half of our, my screen on my phone, and like all of my apps are below that. And it’s just a photo of the dream sailboat that my wife and I are looking at.

And it says, I enjoy traveling the world in our, you know, whatever the name of the boat is. And it’s just at the top of my phone. So every time I have to check a notification or I have to open an app or look at it, it’s just there on the front. And it’s on thing. So I’m reading that every single time, four or five times a day. I’m just reading that affirmation. And it’s also on my desktop, on my computer.

And it’s on the background of my watch when every time I look at my watch, I see it. And I did some sort of damage to my big toe on my left foot. So it’s got a big old bruise on it and [00:36:00] you know, the bruises stay under your toenail for like a year. So I’ve had my wife been painting a little sailboat on my toe to cover the bruise, and so I’ve got a little painted sailboat on the toe and it’s just, you know, so even when I’m in the shower and I look down and I wash my feet, I’m like, oh look.

There it is. That’s the thing I’m working towards right now. And it’s the same kind of process where you’re just constantly working on that, Hey, this is the thing that I’m working towards right now. It’s the current journey.

Tony Everett: And it opens up the mind. I think anything like that opens up the mind to be more of a growth mindset rather than that fixed and giving up type mindset that we get.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely.

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And now back to the Hero show.

Richard Matthews: So I’m gonna shift gears again and talk a little about your own personal heroes. Right? So every hero has their mentors, just like Frodo had Gandalf or Luke had Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Robert Kiyosaki had his rich dad, or even Spider-Man had his uncle Ben. I wanna talk about who were some of your heroes.

Were they real-life mentors? Were they speakers, authors, maybe peers who were a couple years ahead of you, and how important were they to what you have accomplished so far?

Tony Everett: Yes. So, two, spring to mind. There’s a gentleman called Russ. His name is, I’ve always just known him as Coach Russ. And I’ve looked up to him because of his pathway. He was a big mentor and helped me launch the non-profit to where it is today, 15 years in the making.

He was a big part of that early on. He’s now retired. I reached out to him just this week actually, or just last week, and I’m gonna go and meet him again. I haven’t seen him for a couple years. So Russ Williams is a big part of that.

And another one is[00:39:00] I’m actually, I’m in this transition as I’ve alluded to. I’m stepping away from the nonprofit day job stuff that I’ve been doing. I’m still gonna be doing coaching for personal best coaching, but I’m also stepping into an organization called Driven Leadership. And it’s run by a gentleman called Eric McGrath. And he’s been a massive part of my personal growth and development.

And someone that I’ve, he started a business, he’s grown it, he’s made things happen. And so looking up to him as well is someone that’s important as a mentor and someone in my life that’s really important.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Yeah, I always like that question ’cause people always have different answers for like, who are the people that you look up to? And one of the things that always struck me about that question, and maybe you resonate this with this, is a lot of times the people that you look up to and think, that person’s a hero in my life, wouldn’t even know that you look up to them as a hero.

And so the way it’s always struck me is like, there’s probably people in my life who look up to me as a hero. I’ve always the thing that always puts in my head is, am I worthy of that? [00:40:00] Am I acting in a way that’s worthy of that? And so it’s always just a cool reminder to myself, essentially to just continue to act and live in a way that’s worthy of other people looking up at me as a hero.

Tony Everett: Yeah. It’s very important to be aware of that I think ’cause we’re all on a journey. And you only have to be one step ahead of someone else. For them to be looking up at you to be saying, I wanna be that person. I wanna move that direction. Yeah, for sure.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. So then I wanna talk about your guiding principles, right? One of the things that makes heroes heroic is that they live by a code. For instance, Batman never kills his enemies. He only ever puts him in Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, let’s talk about the top one or two, maybe two principles that you live your life by you run your business by.

And, you know, maybe something that you wish you had known when you started out on your own hero’s journey. You know, 17 years ago.

Tony Everett: Guiding principle number one is curious. Be curious. Just, I don’t know. Anything. Ask questions. Be open. Yeah, go into situations not knowing. I think is an important part [00:41:00] of what’s going on because as much as a coach coaches people in what they’re doing, we don’t know their story and why they’re there.

So if we go into any situation with preconceived ideas or prejudices or anything like that, it can put us. In a tough situation. So be curious, be open, find out their story, find out who they are. I think that’s the number one guiding principle. And I wish I’d have known that years ago because I went into it thinking that I knew everything and here we go. And it didn’t turn out too well early on.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, curiosity is one of those like superpower principles that if you really understand what it means to be curious, you open yourself up to a world of so many things. Like it makes if you know, every business you’re in, you have to do sales of some sort. Curiosity is the foundation of good sales.

Right? And if you wanna pick up skills, curiosity is the foundation of picking up skills if you wanna travel. Curiosity is the foundation of good travel, like good traveling experience. Like it doesn’t matter [00:42:00] what it is you’re doing. Curiosity is the start of that. And it is probably, if I had to list it up there with like some of the human’s greatest abilities is our ability to be curious, right?

It’s like right up there with our ability to have storytelling and to use language, right? It’s like curiosity is what makes us not animals, right? It’s one of those superpowers. So, I couldn’t agree more.

Tony Everett: Thank you. And, but it’s, I will say it’s a recent finding, it’s a recent discovery. I was never really able to put words on into it, into that until recently. And for whatever reason, I got curious about curiosity. And so I’ve read six or seven books on the whole idea of curiosity in the last couple of months, and that’s when I’m like.

That’s it. That’s where I’ve been. That’s where I’ve been wanting to go. So I cemented that in really within the last couple of months.

Richard Matthews: I have a newsletter I’m working on called Permission to Play and [00:43:00] as permission to play is, the idea is that if you want to succeed in any realm, you have to give yourself permission to play. And permission to play is really just another way of saying be curious, right? Be young, be youthful, be interested in the small things.

You know, that whole childhood mentality of being willing to play. That’s how you succeeded. Anything so.

Tony Everett: For sure. Yeah. I love that.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. So I think that’s a good place to wrap our interview. But I do finish every interview with a simple challenge I call the Heroes Challenge. And I do this to help get access to people who might not be out doing the podcast rounds and telling their stories. So, we can sometimes find some really interesting stories this way.

And the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network who you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First names are fine. And why do you think they should come share their story with us here on The Hero Show? First person that comes to mind for you.

Tony Everett: There’s a gentleman called Clint Davis. He’s started his own school and so many challenges in starting a private school in how he [00:44:00] wanted to start it up. I think he would be a fantastic person. He’s got an amazing story from where he came from to where he is to now.

And the other one would be Eric McGrath. Both of those two fascinating people. I created something incredible and would definitely be worth being a part of this.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Well, I’ll see if we can reach out afterwards and maybe get an introduction. Sometimes they say yes, sometimes they don’t. But when they do, we get some cool stories to add to our library here. So in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people who stay at the end and, you know, cheer and clap for the acts of heroism.

So our analogous to that here on this show is as we close, we wanna know where can people find you? Where you know, if they need their help in the future, where can they light up the bat signal, so to speak and say, Hey Tony, I’m going through a transition right now. How you help Right? And so I think more important than where though is who are the right types of people to raise their hand and ask for your help.

Tony Everett: Yeah. So where is MPBcoaching.com it’s the website. You can find me on LinkedIn, Tony Everett the right type of people.[00:45:00] Are the people who are lost and confused. Part of my coaching journey is I’m actually serving myself as a teenager, as a twenty-something who was genuinely lost and confused in life, had no idea where I was going and what I was doing.

And so those people who have know there’s something deeper there, they know that there’s a purpose, but they can’t find it. They don’t know where to look. They’re the people I wanna talk to. I love helping people tap into that curiosity mindset, developing mastery, passion, purpose.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. So thank you so much for coming on today, Tony, really appreciate getting a chance to hear your story and hear your way you think through curiosity in life and just you know, navigating the seasonality that, that you know, is present for everyone. So appreciate that. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Do you have any final words of wisdom for our audience before we hit this stop record button today?

Tony Everett: Now just stays curious. Kids watch kids, they’re so curious. I love watching kids and seeing what they do. Watch kids stay curious.[00:46:00]

Richard Matthews: I love it. Thank you so much, Tony.

Tony Everett: Thank you.

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