IAM832- Founder Runs Private Money Loans Company
Podcast Interview with Loren Howard
Loren Howard is the founder and President of Prime Plus Mortgages, a private money loans company. Loren, who is a serial entrepreneur, loving father, and husband, boasts a portfolio of multiple successful companies, world records, and a decorated football career. He is the coveted world record holder for indoor rowing in the 500M, 100M, and max distance in 1:00. Additionally, Loren proudly serves as the President of the Valley Guardians, a 501c-3 charity that runs on a $0 dollar operating budget, and that offers mentorship, leadership and educational opportunities to underprivileged children in Phoenix, Arizona.
- CEO Hack: A good morning routine
- CEO Nugget: Recognise some unhealthy practices that might deter you from success
- CEO Defined: A journey of knowing yourself
Website: https://www.primeplusmortgages.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenhoward/
Full Interview:
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Transcription
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00:02 – Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.
00:30 – Gresham Harkless:
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and have a very special guest on the show today. I have Lauren Howard of Prime Plus Mortgages. Lauren, it's awesome having you on the show.
00:39 – Loren Howard
Well, appreciate you having me. Excited to be here.
00:42 – Gresham Harkless:
No problem. Super excited to have you on as well too. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Lauren so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Lauren is the founder and president of Crime Plus Mortgages, a private money loans company. Lauren, who is a serial entrepreneur, loving father, and husband, boasts a portfolio of multiple successful companies, world records, and a decorated football career. He's a coveted world record holder for indoor rowing in the 500 meters, 100 meters, and max distance in 1 minute. Additionally, Lauren probably serves as the president of the Valley Gardens, a 501c3 charity that runs on $0 an operating budget and offers mentorship, leadership, and educational opportunities to underprivileged children in Phoenix, Arizona. Lauren, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
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01:28 – Loren Howard
Absolutely. I like that bio right there. I'm gonna use that. I'm gonna get that from you.
01:33 – Gresham Harkless
Exactly. You're doing so many awesome things. It's hard to keep up with everything that you're doing. But I love how you're putting a dent in the universe, so to speak.
01:43 – Loren Howard
Trying, man, One day at a time.
01:46 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to kind of rewind the clock a little bit here and a little bit more about how you got started could you take us through what I call your CEO story we'll let you get started with your businesses.
01:55 – Loren Howard
Sure you know growing up I always been an athlete like playing football so I was you know I was an All-American in high school, won the blue chip, and went off to play football at Northwestern in college. Kind of got there thinking I'd go to Northwestern because I had offers all over the country. You could have gone to Miami, could have gone to Nebraska, could have gone to Michigan, could have gone to USC. But I didn't start playing football until high school, so I didn't really know how it was gonna be. The ball really hard. You leave the faith, you gotta get a good education and then play some Big 10 football. But I got there, I was starting on day 2 in camp. You know, I was a Big 10 defensive freshman of the year, a freshman All-American.
It was all, the same year that Maurice Claret was the Big 10 offensive freshman of the year. I was a Big 10 defensive freshman of the year. And, you know, so took off and, you know, football was going to be the ticket from there out and my sophomore year came out. It was all-conference, just kind of dominated. It did really, really well. Going into my junior year, Mel Kuiper had me be in the rank of the second DN to go in the draft. This is preseason, obviously, right? Was in the same class as Mario Williams and Matthias Juanuka coming out of Boston College.
And I'm going, I think, 10th. Mario and I are going first in the draft, and then I'm getting hurt. And I got hurt, that's going into 8 weeks. I came back 6 weeks later probably too fast. Developed a little bit of knee tinnitus that never healed up. Played the last 6 games and then my knee never really got better. I tried to get healthy and I came to the camp the following year. Couldn't play, I'd have surgery again and transferred to ASU. So, all of a sudden, in my football career, I thought that I would do anything, and so I was going to start a business with a friend of mine. We decided to start, I was gonna stop on the manufacturing line with a sexual enhancement product, and I kind of call that my MBA.
I borrowed 5 grand from 3 different uncles and so we both put 15 grand into the pot you know keep in mind I never had a sales job before in my life I talked very fast and mumbled I was an athlete I was a smart guy I was driven guy but no business background my mom was a teacher substitute teacher dad wasn't really around a whole lot you know we grew up pretty humble you know I mean and so you know I did have a basic background money background so I decided to go start a business. It's a little bit of an ass-backward way of doing things.
You know, usually you get out of the business world and the sales world and kind of figure it out but that wasn't the path for me and we learned a lot so we were thinking we're gonna sell this thing online kind of like the Enzyte model remember that male enhance and probably Enzyte back in the day with the free trial, free bill. And so, you know, we thought, well, once we launched the website and made it go live, we did that. And we built a guy in India. I don't know how long he'll be going on the story. I could have a TV. The company that's building the website, And I became really close with him and actually hired him away. He actually got it, he left the company because I guess the head guy was an asshole and we had built a relationship.
So he kind of dark on me, I hit him up and asked what was going on. He told me a story. So I said, like, I think 250 bucks just to take care of because he's a friend of mine who's down and out and we became really, really tight from that. And so from there, we decided to partner up and he would set up an office over there. And, I would get out there and try to sell the website packages and SEO packages, right? And so that's how my first my second venture in a business and really, I got into a BNI networking group there, which is how and it was one of those deals where you just like you crack a sale and you can like to pay your rent that month, you know what I mean? It's just, it was a struggle.
You know, he's on the other side, a young guy in India set up an office and trying to manage that. I'm running the front here and it was, it was a struggle, but it was fun. You know, and I still have a relationship with, his name's Ajay to this day. Actually, I had never met him personally, but we were like brothers and he actually came after my wedding 4 years ago. I got to meet him for the first time and we haven't done business together probably in 10 years, but we just had a kind of spirit. And so from there, I met a guy who kind of taught me the lead generation business. And so I started generating leads through call centers. So I would broker, I go find call centers on LinkedIn or on Skype in the Philippines and India.
And then I would go, they were generating like call verified leads or live transfers, right? And I would, I would go and find buyers and I'd link them up and I'd make a dollar or 2 bucks a lead. And then I found a guy who let me license his lead exchange platform. So I kind of became like a lead brokerage. And that's kind of where I really started making good money. I mean, my first million bucks, I was probably 26, 27 years old. And, you know, scaled up business to about 2 or $3 million in revenue out of my, you know, my guest, my guest room by my side, and all my employees were virtual, you know, in other countries managing these things.
And then, then I got involved in a compounding pharmacy. And the compounding pharmacy did really well. We did 8 figures in like 15 months. So then from there, I started investing my money into real estate and sort of lending it out into the hard money space. I'm talking about hard money and when the compounding world kind of disintegrated because it's not paying for compounds and we got into the lending space and into the real estate investment space and into the day trading space, which is what I do now. I came from having 170 employees in 40 states and a 10,000-square-foot facility having to go to the office every day, which comes with a lot of stress, and a lot of responsibility.
And now I work from home, and my employees are virtual. I got, the business is really systematized. So at the time, you know 1-year-old son now and Spending my family from my wife and really living the lifestyle that I want to have this time that I want which I think is important for me At least that's kind of where that's my journey up to now. So I kind of packed in on a little good 15 years into however long that was. And a couple of minutes now.
08:09 – Gresham Harkless
I definitely appreciate you for synthesizing that and getting that down. So that we can hear the journey. So many times we don't see, we just see the finish line or where a person is. We don't see the process that it takes to get there. And so I wanted to ask you now for like a little bit more about your business. Could you take us through how you serve your clients? What exactly that process is? And what you feel kind of is your secret sauce or the thing you feel kind of sets you or your organization apart?
08:34 – Loren Howard
Yeah, sure. Good question. So for me, you know, hard-made loans, it's an asset-based loan, right? It's a short-term asset-based loan that people use to acquire investment properties. So they want to go buy property from a wholesaler or pre foreclosure and they need to close in a week You know, they come to us and we don't pull credit. We don't we don't want background checks We just purely base land on the asset value and it's all done investment properties. And so What sets us aside a little bit is it's a D. It is a little bit of a commoditized business. But we're very quick, right? As I'm the owner company, I have one partner who is a 25% partner and was a 50-50 partner in the bank, but we have 2 lending arms, one of them I own, and then he owns half of the other one.
And so yeah, but you know, we make fast decisions, we're able to get an answer within an hour, hour and a half, we tend to be a little bit more aggressive sometimes on terms because we really know the wholesale values and the properties. And we want it's customer service, we want to get to know our clients and follow up. And I think I think when you're in a business that can be slightly commoditized, the level of service and speed is what's going to usually set you aside, I think. And I think that's what we do a really good job of our systems operations, our response times. Catherine, you know, our SEO girl is doing an amazing job. We rank from the top keywords, locally here we only live in Arizona.
And so I think that's kind of what, what, what sets us aside. Yeah. Also, one other thing too, is it's all our own money. It's me, my partner's money, or its bank lines of credit. So a traditional hard money lending fund Typically has the right deep private place memorandum in which they raise private funds, right? So they have investors to speak to that to deal with You know if you want redemption is raising more money deploying that money So we tend to have a little bit, be a little bit more nimble in that aspect because it's all around cash or it's our lines of credit to banks that we're personally guaranteed on. And so because of that, we can make faster and more efficient decisions and it's less management from us having to try to manage you know with finer investors so.
10:37 -Gresham Harkless
Yeah anytime you have so many more people that have a voice so to speak it becomes a lot more red tape and it kind of reminded me of Madden every time I played Madden it would say speed kills And that sounds like it's relevant as well too, as you start to see every business commoditize the faster and quicker you're able to kind of communicate, provide quality service and do that at a quicker pace. That definitely provides a great way to kind of break through the noise. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this might be an Apple Book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
11:09 – Loren Howard
Yeah, that's a good question, man. I think a lot of times it depends on where you're at in your CEO journey, but I definitely think like having a good routine, like a good morning routine. Like for me, I get up and I meditate, I have a hyperbaric chamber that I sit up for an hour and then I work out like, and in the pit, you know, when you're going through stressful times, or using a startup environment, or you're, you need to have the right routines and qualities and you need to read the right things do the right things for your mind your brain because that's got it that's gonna be your fuel man.
And it's hard to get through tough times and tough situations and even good ones without you know optimizing your and it starts with your overall physical health right It's what you put in your body. You know, it's your sleep, it's your meditation, it's your reading and having I think that balance to build fuel you for the day. So I would say given the habit of having a habit Tony Robbins calls it your power hour. There are plenty of words for it, but just having that routine in the morning that feeds you the energy you need for the day to be able to attack that day.
12:10 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. I think he says too is in order to win the day, you gotta win the morning. And a lot of times when you win that morning, you understand what exactly success looks like, it empowers you through that day. And I think that's absolutely powerful. So I love that hack. And so now I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. If you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell this to your younger business self.
12:33 – Loren Howard:
It's a little bit of a Jim Rome had a quote that always stuck with me that was you know a lot of the times more often than not the qualities that get you to where you're trying to go are not the same qualities that are going to help you enjoy it when you're there, if that makes sense, right? So I see a lot of guys that, and it's good to be ambitious and continue to go for bigger and better and greater goals, but I also think it's important to recognize maybe some of the unhealthy characteristics that might have led you to success. The unbalance, the neglect of other areas of your life, you know, because you've developed these habits and then you get to a place where you're successful and you had the money, you had the resources and you had the time, but you don't have the skill set mentally or psychologically to enjoy it.
You know what I'm saying? So I think sometimes you can always kind of reassess where you're at, where you came from, where you're trying to go and you know, in the mentality and still says that kind of got you there because I think those, you know, you want to be able to enjoy your life and have balance and sometimes I know for me, I mean, I was super unbalanced and super single-minded super focused on where I was going and almost selfish in a sense And, you know, I had to reflect on that and figure out, and now I'm where I want to get where I wanted to go to be able to enjoy that and smell the roses, I guess.
13:58 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Lauren, what does being a CEO mean to you?
14:07 – Loren Howard
I think being a CEO kind of is knowing like really it's a journey of knowing yourself, right? Knowing your manager style, knowing your leadership style, and then being able to play into your strengths, knowing your personality style, knowing what drives you. And then…
14:19 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Lauren, truly appreciate your definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're in the team we're working on.
14:35 – Loren Howard
I think of, you know, 1 thing that always comes to mind is I've never known a successful entrepreneur that did like read all the time and always on a constant quest for knowledge. So I would recommend getting in the habit of reading daily and not using the stigma that we could generate in school of, oh, I hate to read, but really get out there and educate yourself because you're going to turn on light bulbs. As far as things that, you know, I run a charity. I started with some friends down here We raised about 1.4 million dollars in the last 4 years and we give all the money we raised to different Kids in need here in the Valley of Arizona that's kind of my passion project and my operating business, which I'm really enjoying.
And it's called Valley Guardians. You can go to valleyguardians.org and find out what we're all about. You can find me on lorenhoward66 on Instagram or lorenhoward on Facebook or Twitter. But yeah, it's really cool. I love coaching people. I love helping and giving advice. I love taking advice too. So I'm a very approachable person and I know I'm always trying to constantly improve and get better and help others do the same. So, yeah, if anyone wants to reach out, I'll be very responsive and I'm always here.
15:51 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you again, Lauren. We will have those links and information in the show notes for the organization as well as your social media links and for your company as well. But I appreciate you again for coaching us up and you know, giving us so many words of wisdom and insight. And we will have all that information in the show notes as well. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:11 – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
00:02 - Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO podcast.
00:30 - Gresham Harkless: Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and we have a very special guest on the show today. We have Tina Darlington-Samson of Crossing Time Coaching. Tina, it's awesome to have you on the show.
00:39 - Tina Darlington Sampson
Thank you so much, Gresh, and I am so thrilled to be here with you today.
00:44 - Gresham Harkless
I'm thrilled as well to have you on the show. You're doing so much awesome work and what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Tina so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Tina is a certified spiritual life coach and the founder of Crossing Time Coaching. Tina began a budding career in Washington DC where she worked in diverse fields and positions from informational information technology training to human resource management. Her work in these fields afforded her the opportunity to coach and counsel a diverse population.
During the span of her 22-year career, Tina recognized her ability to engage and inspire people with her voice, her expressive style of outreach, and her strong conviction which led her to mentor and coach middle and high school girls. In 2015 in order to take her passion for helping others to the next level she sharpened her skills by completing an intensive spiritual life coach training program in 2018 and launched Crossing Time Coaching, a holistic life coach business focusing on the fullness of who we are as individuals. Her goal is to help individuals make breakthroughs that lead to empowerment and fulfillment for purposeful living. Tina, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
01:44 - Tina Darlington Sampson
Yes, I am I am here and ready to go.
01:47 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. It's good to hear all the awesome things you're doing and reading your bio got me so jazzed up. So I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit here, a little bit more on how you got started. Could you take us through what I call your CEO story? Well, then you can start with this.
01:57 - Tina Darlington Sampson
Absolutely, Gresh. And so much of it is highlighted as brief as it sounds in that bio or it could be not as brief to some people who read it. However, it goes into the heart of the business who I am and how my story started, which was over 20-plus years ago. It began really in the bedroom of my home with my sister-in-law, who was visiting from California during the holidays, we were talking, and she stopped me in the middle of the conversation, she said, Tina, you know, you are a life coach. And I stopped and said, a life coach. I mean, I had never heard that word before. I had no idea.
And she said, because every time I talk to you, you uplift me, you inspire me, you motivate, you help bring me back into the things that are truly important in our lives, and you shape it always in truth and also with an understanding. It may not be easy, but you know, things that aren't easy are what make us better and stronger. And this is what life coaches do. They listen to the other person and help them on their journey of what they want to do. And I honestly, Gresh, just listened closely and said, well, OK, knew nothing about a lab coach. And I really didn't think to go out and research it any further beyond that point. I had very young sons at that point. And I knew I was just a fortune ahead as a mother and wife, and I was a professional in my field. And at that time doing technology training in law firms throughout the DMV area.
So now we fast forward to 20-plus years later, and it was around the mid-20s in my position at the law firm I'm currently still in, is that I recognized I was really no longer managing my staff in a typical way. I was beginning to really counsel and coach them. And that word coach came to me from my manager. He brought it back up to my attention again and said, Tina, you're doing a really good job on how you're coaching your staff now. So all of a sudden, this conversation came pouring back into me and I realized, wait a minute, when I did the homework and I did the research about what is a life coach, That's exactly what I had become unbeknownst to me at the time, and I wasn't labeling it as such.
I started reading, took myself to school, and did an intensive coaching session at the Light Purpose Institute in San Diego, California, which is really 1 of the trailblazing schools for coaches and it's under the helms of firm Gorin who started and she's done some amazing work in the coaching field so I learned from the best became certified 1 of the best schools in the country and from there just applied it back into my full-time position, but then crossing time coaching was rooted in me. The passion began that, you know what, this is my next. So I'm preparing myself for my next. Hence was the inception of crossing time coaching.
04:46 - Gresham Harkless
Nice. I absolutely love that. And it's so funny you say that because I often say and often believe that even with what I'm doing now, I often went back to when I was a lot younger and sometimes you have those seeds that are planted and it's maybe not ready to be watered or maybe not ready to bloom yet, but you still have those seeds. And I think even Steve Jobs has this commencement speech that he gives where he says a lot of times in your life, you can't automatically know exactly how everything's gonna line up. But sometimes when you look at those dots, you turn back and look at those dots, you can see how everything aligns and how it gets you to where you are now.
05:16 - Tina Darlington Sampson
Yes, well said. I love that. And it's absolutely right. I totally agree with it. And in all, in hindsight, you look back, and you reflect and go, wow. So I love how you said, Gresh, the seed, exactly. And then it's being watered throughout, and then it comes into bloom when you're ready for it, too, I believe, When you're ready.
05:34 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, and absolutely. And the beautiful thing about it is just like, I think you said, your sister said, we all have our separate and our own unique seeds and we can only water them as best as we can but no 1 can water them like we can. So I absolutely love that. And I know you touched on it a little bit and I did as well too when I read your bio. Could you take us through exactly what you're doing with Crossing Time Coaching and how you're supporting the clients you work with?
05:56 - Tina Darlington Sampson
Absolutely. You know, Crossing Time Coaching really was birthed out of my spirit as wanting to offer life coaching services to individuals. But because I also do a lot of professional development in my other role in my other position, I do a lot of career coaching as well. And in conjunction with that transitional coaching. So that's the crux of this type of service that we offer in the coaching arena at Crossing Time Coaching. However, the unique thing about us is that I'm going to approach my coaching conversations from, as my bio said, a holistic perspective because we're created in mind, body, spirit, and soul. And if that's who we are comprised of as individuals as people,
then I want to approach whatever it is you're trying to do for yourself, whatever goals you're setting, how we're going to identify strategies to help you meet those goals, that we may have to come into some other places that just aren't gonna be black and white. Maybe you are struggling in some areas regarding your physical health or just things emotionally, relationships, those types of things that are hindering you from meeting some of your goals or even feeling that you can accomplish those goals. So I'm going to dig a little deeper and allow us to wade into waters maybe that typically most coaches may not want to venture into. But that's the difference between crossing-time coaching and working with me is that I'm bringing it in from a spiritual perspective.
07:20 - Gresham Harkless
Nice, I absolutely love that and I think that you know so many times we try to sometimes do it within ourselves but sometimes even the people around us put people into silos and not look at that holistic aspect so that's why you know I love you know everything that you're doing and you know what you stand for even that you touched on, you know, how you even did it with the team that you had to at the law firm because I think I'm literally looking at this book called it's the manager that you know we had on our CEO bookshelf and you know it's literally on my bookshelf right now. It talked about how the great leaders are those coaches, are the people that are really able to dial into not just one aspect of what you have to do but realize that all of it is overlapping, 1 supports the other, and it's really hard to separate 1 from the other because it all is holistically what makes us who we are.
08:05 - Tina Darlington Sampson
Absolutely. Yes. Yes, and I wrote the name of that book down. It's the manager.
08:09 -Gresham Harkless
Yes, absolutely. And I'll send you the link. We had it on our bookshelf. It's a phenomenal book by Clifton and Hartner. So really phenomenal read. And so I know you touched on, do you feel like that holistic aspect in the way that you look and how you work with your clients is what is your secret sauce and the thing you feel sets you apart?
08:28 - Tina Darlington Sampson
It is absolutely the secret sauce. And I love your USP, your unique selling proposition. That's it. It's all grounded in that because it was very intentional, Gresh, as far as what type of coaching certification I was going to, as you're probably very familiar with. And those who might listen to this are coaches themselves, I mean, we have a plethora of coaches out there whose niche is in different areas that suit them best, where they feel the strongest and most capable and experienced to speak from. From your activity coaches to your health coaches, to all different business coaches, and executives, there's this, we can identify with ourselves within our own places of being a coach and then that arena where we can really focus our attention. And because of the person that I am and how I conduct my life and believe the spiritual life coach certification just immediately connected with me.
And when I read, you know, the depth of the course content and what I would learn, and then the expectation of how you're going to coach from that angle, I knew it was for me. I knew that was it because it is rooted in faith in how I approach our coaching sessions and your faith may not be what mine is however I respect where you are and vice versa but I know how I can shape my coaching conversations and with you because then I know exactly where you are in your faith and you have some understanding of where I am and we're connecting at a spiritual level because many times, Gresh, I believe the, one of the best ways for us to overcome our issues, our concerns, our hurts, our pains, whatever it is we're dealing with in our lives is through our faith and the things that we can do with ourselves spiritually to increase and enhance that part of ourselves. So that is my USP, the Secret Sauce at Crossing Time Coaching.
10:13 - Gresham Harkless
I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple Book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
10:23 - Tina Darlington Sampson
I just am not going to fall into the typical way of how some may answer the question of hack. But again, as I said, being true to who I am and the authenticity of the person that I am. And I just know that reads my life is that mine will be a book and it is the Bible. This is my source of life. This is my life source of how I make decisions, conduct my life, and make my life choices. And, you know, I highly respect the additional resources that are also available to me through the gifts of other people. And I will tell you, a book that I read recently, and you may know of this book, The One Thing by Gary Keller, oh my gosh, one of them,
I mean, you know, I like to read and I am blown away by this book. I'm actually referring it to my clients now, my co-cheese. If there's one book you want to read this year, it is this book, The One Thing. It is phenomenal. You may have some understanding, an idea about how Gary is approaching this with his co-author, Jay Papason, but he really makes you hone in and take stock and stop and think, What is the one thing that we could be doing every day to help ourselves to get to where we're trying to go? And he approaches it from every angle and just lays it all out.
11:40 - Gresham Harkless
I absolutely love that question. I always go back to it. And so now I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
11:52 - Tina Darlington Sampson
Well, I will tell you everything that you just said. It would be for every aspect of every part of what you labeled for me, a word of wisdom for a client for everyone because I've lived this and I know what it's done and the hindrance of it. Don't delay. Just don't. Don't delay what you know you should be doing. Don't delay what your spirit has told you. You should get up and go do it. Once you know who you are, you're competent in who you are, you identify your giftings, go for it.
Don't let the voices of others stop you, or don't put up a wall of fear or intimidation because you're concerned about what others may think or feel or say about you. Don't, just don't get out of your own head and get people out of your ears who shouldn't be there and shouldn't have your attention to help distract you from doing what you know you're supposed to be doing right now. Align yourself with those who are like-minded and most importantly get yourself a mentor who will help you with whatever your mission is, whatever your vision or goal is for yourself that's going to align themselves with you and your vision and help develop you in the process. Don't delay.
12:59 - Gresham Harkless
Now, I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Tina, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:08 - Tina Darlington Sampson
Great, being a CEO to me, Gresh, is all about leadership. For me, it's leading in a spirit of truth, transparency, integrity, and authenticity. I truly appreciate that definition. Thank you, thank you so much.
13:24 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do was pass you the mic so to speak just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things that you're working on.
13:35 - Tina Darlington Sampson
Absolutely. Well, you know, just to wind this up, Gresh, again, thank you so much for this time, this opportunity. And if people would like to reach out to us, my website is crossingtimecoaching.com. Make it very simple, the name of the company, and everything falls in sync. We're on Instagram, Crossing Time Coaching, as well as my Facebook page. And then you can reach out directly to Tina at crossingtimecoaching.com. So I wanted to keep it clean and seamless so that you wouldn't forget. You would think of CTC. That's what I break it down to And just 1 more thing that we're doing at Crossing Time Coaching If you check out our website is that we offer other services one area that is very true to my heart and dear is that we have a mentoring program for young women from 12 to 19 years old.
What we offer are a series of workshops and it's called life skills for today's young ladies. Because I believe you know what is missing in the home right now is that real understanding of just how to develop and train a young lady as she should become as a woman. And it is based on faith. And so we go through these workshops and it's just teaching them basic etiquette of, you know, table setting placements, how to present yourself, proper attire, interviewing skills for jobs, how to put a resume together, all the way from cooking lessons. I've taken it back to old school in a sense, but they're life skills of things you need to know how to do just for yourself as a person.
And we've had great success with people reaching out and so that's something else I always like to just throw in as an additional resource that we are to people if you know of groups of young women that you would like to have our services come in and do these workshops Check it out and we'll talk to you. Everything's customizable for what maybe they would want us to do in our workshops. And I bring in other professional women. It's not just me, because I want our young women today to hear from others that are working in different venues of careers and they're being able to connect. If I want to be an accountant.
You know, we talk about money management in our workshops, the difference between tithing and saving and investing your money and having a checking account, and the credit aspect. So we're trying to give them all of these life skills we can, but I want them to hear other professional women's voices about it. So that's just 1 little extra thing I wanted to throw in about our services.
15:54 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. I truly appreciate that Tina. We will have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you and find out about all the awesome things you're doing. And I think so many times we forget with the leadership and the platforms that we have, we have a great opportunity to be able to give to others. So I love, you know, that program and what you're doing and how you're supporting the young women so that they can be leaders and being very impactful in the world as well. So I truly appreciate you for doing that. Appreciate that reminder to all of us as well too. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:22 - Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
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