IAM833- Keynote Speaker Guides Clients to Build Lasting Legacy

Tommy Breedlove is a Wall Street Journal & USA Today bestselling author of the book, Legendary, and an Atlanta-based business, relationship, and mindset coach who is a regular featured keynote speaker at global events. He serves clients and audiences by empowering them to build and live Legendary Lives. He guides them to build a lasting legacy, work in their zone of brilliance, obtain financial confidence, and live with meaning and balance.

• CEO Hack: Strong gratitude practice
• CEO Nugget: (1) Participate in your own rescue – ask for help (2) Listen more
• CEO Defined: You are a leader, servant and you have a responsibility to provide value

Website: http://www.tommybreedlove.com/

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/legendarybook
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/legendarychoice
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tommybreedlove/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tommybreedlove
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBFWr-UNFe-Z6eKMVayZfVA

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Full Interview:

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 Harkless 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. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Tommy Breelove of Tommy Breelove.com. Tommy, it's awesome having you on the show.

00:39 – Tommy Breedlove

Gresh, what an honor, brother. And I've already had some good laughs and almost a good cry talking about the Atlanta Falcons. So I'm here for you.

00:46 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. And I definitely promise I wouldn't say my favorite team until the end of the show, because I want to continue the good vibes and the good energy that we have going on. And before we jump into the interview, I wanted to read a little bit more about Tommy so you can hear about all these awesome things that he's doing. Tommy is a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of the book, Legendary, an Atlanta-based business relationship and mindset coach who is a regular featured keynote speaker at global events. He serves clients and audiences by empowering them to build and live legendary lives. He guides them to build a lasting legacy, work in their zone of brilliance, and obtain financial confidence in living with meaning and balance. Tommy, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:30 – Tommy Breedlove

I cannot wait to speak to the I AM CEO community. What an honor.

01:34 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, honor is all ours. And we wanted to kind of kick everything off and we're winding 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? We'll let you get started with all the awesome things you're working on.

01:45 – Tommy Breedlove

So I'm fortunate enough to be in my second career. I grew up in the financial industry. I was a senior partner, shareholder, and board member at a large financial consulting firm based in the southeast. And even with all the money title prestige, it was not my calling. So I made a very difficult and now I'll look back and give myself a little bit of love. I'm a recovering perfectionist so giving self-love is sometimes a little hard but it took a lot of courage for me to walk away from what was a significant amount of money to go chase this passion and what led me to this is I'm very grateful that I'm also in a career that I didn't choose, it chose me and I went through a massive transformation in my life.

And when I did that all these executives, entrepreneurs, managers, all these people in my network started reaching out to me asking me for help in their relationships with their mindset with their money, and with their lives because I went through a massive transformation. And so this chose me and that was my CEO moment and I'm a slow learner apparently because it was just countless people reaching out to me asking for help. And I was still in the financial industry. I never planned on leaving. Eventually, it became so much of a calling and it led to the book as well that I sold my equity, resigned from my board seat, and walked away at 39 years old to chase this dream of helping people build and live legendary lives. That was my CEO moment, my friend.

03:05 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I think I can speak to and probably a lot of people can listen and can be labeled slow learners or sometimes they couple that with being hard-headed and not wanting to listen to that calling that we sometimes hear so often, but I think it's so powerful that we often are reminded that sometimes we get those signs and we hear those callings. We just kind of tune them out. But a lot of times when you do kind of step into that, things just kind of take off from there. It sounds like it has for you.

03:32 – Tommy Breedlove

So true and for me, I grew up in such humble beginnings, you know, no 1 in my family was college-educated. We were a good solid collar part of South Atlanta walking away from money and success to go follow a dream and follow our purpose. It was hard to do. I mean, it was not an easy process and it took a family decision. But one of my mantras now is I don't wanna live life with regrets. I don't wanna regret my actions, my words, and certainly where I spend most of my time, which is my career. So I would rather know that at least was in the arena working toward my dream, as opposed to working towards someone else's dream. And so, giving myself a little self-love today. So thank you for allowing me to do that.

04:15 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. You definitely deserve it. And I think so many times, you know, a lot of times when you do for yourself so many times that helps out so many people because it permits people to be able to do the same. And I think being able to kind of, you know, go towards your call and go towards the things that light you up and the things that are your zone of brilliance that you kind of spoke to as well to really give you that opportunity to really excel and be happy and live the dream you truly want.

04:40 – Tommy Breedlove

Thank you, man. Thank you. So true. And I think we guys like us give people the permission to go second. Like if he was vulnerable, honest, raw, and took the courage to do that. And I'm saying this grassy if I Tommy Breedlove can do this anybody can do it because and so but to me again, it goes back to significance purpose, and living life without regrets. And so, carpe diem, right?

05:05 – Gresham Harkless

I absolutely love that. And so, I wanted to ask you now how exactly you serve the clients. I know I spoke to it a little bit in the bio. Could you take us through what exactly that process looks like and how you support those clients you work with?

05:16 – Tommy Breedlove

Yeah, so people come to me. What helps, I guess, one of my differentiators is that I did spend 20-something-plus years in financial consulting, understanding profitability, cash flow, governance, tough decisions with employees, and everything in between. And people come to me, people come to there's a difference between giving people what they want and what they need. And all people want, what we truly want, my friend is to be seen, heard, loved, valued, and safe. That's what we want. But what we think we need is money, power, significance, more time. And so people usually come to me with their, they're at a crossroads in their life and they have to make a difficult decision in business and life.

They want more money. They want more confidence. They want more time. They're overwhelmed. They're stressed. They can't figure out why, you know, they look up in the sky and ask why they're here. And so that's where we start. But let me tell you what all of us need is we want more intimacy and our friendships are with our significant others. We want to be the masters of our mindset because there's that voice inside our head that says we're not good enough. And what if they figure out, I really don't know what I'm doing? And I'm about to get a little woo woo, but it's, it's, it's not, it's data. Now. This is not anecdotal. People need more unconditional love, self-respect, and self-confidence so that they can truly love and respect others. And you know, and so that's what we need.

So I worked with people, and it always ended there. It doesn't matter if it's a seasoned executive or someone just getting started in their career. That's what I take them through. And the reason I put legendary in a world of constant self-promotion, is if I said Tommy Breedlove is legendary, people would laugh me out of the room. Legendaries are given to us by societies, our communities, or think of the great, there are some bad legends in history. I mean, we can name them and we can name some great people in history, MLK and Gandhi's and all those unbelievably good people. But you don't have to be rich and famous. You just gotta live a life of significance and leave this world, our communities, and people a little better than we found them.

And that to me is building legendary lives. And so that's literally what I do, and I do it in one-on-one settings. I do it in retreats. I do it in group formats. I do it in public speaking. It's truly an honor. And I don't, I'm out in the business of changing people. I'm just in the business of revealing the greatness of what's already in. And it's just an honor to do it, man.

07:36 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

07:47 – Tommy Breedlove

What makes me the most effective is a strong gratitude practice. It helps keep me in the present moment. It helps to keep me out of fear because we all have fear and insecurities. As a CEO, I've got quite an organization now And for me, it keeps me humble, keeps me in the present moment. And it helps me to celebrate the daily wins. My team is amazing at that. And so when we're so because we're always planning and the next thing and the next thing, we're wanting to build empires and that, hey, I get it, Let's do it.

But if we're not enjoying the moments and the wins and even the losses and we're not grateful for every single breath of every single day, that's a hack for me. It keeps me happy, keeps me present, keeps me peaceful, and honestly, it keeps me humble. And it's on the loving side of the spectrum as opposed to the fear side. And we get so caught up in building the businesses and I love it. We need to be grateful for the journey. And I think that would be my biggest life hack.

08:43 – Gresham Harkless

I absolutely love that. And I love, you know, obviously we, it's a little bit easier to be grateful for the things that we're able to succeed at. But I love that you said, you know, being grateful even for the things, whether we failed at, cause I think so many times we forget that getting the opportunity to even fail and to take that chance or take that challenge or go forward is something we should be grateful for as well. Not only does it provide that opportunity, but it also provides a lot of seeds of ways that we can improve to take that next level and actually succeed in the way that we hope to have succeeded in the beginning.

09:15 – Tommy Breedlove

Absolutely. And if we really look for it, especially in our failings and our mistakes. There's so much love and learning in those. I know it's cliche, and we don't talk about it screwing up and failing sucks. It truly does in the moment. It's like a bad breakup, man. It's just hard to get over. But every breakup, every failing, every mistake, you look back 6 months, and if you really look at it, it's probably the best thing that we did and happened to us, if we learn from it, right? And so being grateful for that is where you stand on your mistakes as a strong foundation, as opposed to an anchor weighing you down. Like we're so filled with shame and like we talked about that voice inside our head. Nah, man, that was the best mistake you ever made because now you've learned from it. Now you stand on it with gratitude and you move forward better than we were yesterday. And I think it's a big, powerful thing.

10:05 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And especially when you're able to, as you said, move forward. And a lot of times, like you said, when you look back, you can say, okay, that's why that happened. This is how I improve myself from it, but you can only do that by moving forward. It becomes that anchor if you don't move forward. I absolutely love that.

10:21 – Tommy Breedlove
I was a Michelangelo at screwing up at one time in my life. So I can say with confidence though, that, and I was talking about this last night with a dear friend that I haven't seen in a long, long time. And I'm proud of the man I am now. And I don't want to be remembered as that guy. I want to be remembered as this guy. And I couldn't have done that without all those mistakes. So I'm truly grateful for that.

10:43 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I say very often that I'm a big believer in a kind of binary, so to speak. It's really hard to really experience good without experiencing bad. It's really hard to enjoy the highs if you haven't experienced the lows. And I think that so many times we just want to experience the high, but we don't, we forget that we have to go through a process to get there.

11:03 – Tommy Breedlove

So that sounds like, amen, my brother.

11:06 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So now what did it ask you for? What I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you hopped into the time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:18 – Tommy Breedlove

I would say participate in your own rescue. And what I mean by that is to ask for help. I think so many times we try to try to be that oak tree with the strong roots and we don't have it all figured out. We don't have all the answers. We make mistakes. And I don't want us to die as CEOs on that horse, you know, leading the charge. It takes a village in a community. And so I would say participate in your own rescue, ask for help. And remember 2 ears in one mouth. And the reason I say that is listen, listen, if that doesn't work, listen to more and speak when you need to speak. So ask for help, and participate in your own rescue. There's no magic pill to this thing called life and business. Takes a village, and a community, and surround yourself with people who want to make you better. Know you don't have all the answers and then remember to listen more than you speak. And that's what I would say to all CEOs out there.

12:08 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, I absolutely love that. And I think it ties into what you said about the rock, about that humility aspect, because I think when you're a CEO and an entrepreneur, you have to have a certain kind of revival maybe or confidence that you can really create something. But at the same time, you have to balance that with that humility. And a lot of that manifests itself in asking for help and putting those people around you in order to see that success. And if you don't do that, that bravado, that arrogance, that confidence, or overconfidence may even sometimes lead you to where you ultimately don't want to be.

12:39 – Tommy Breedlove

Yeah. You don't want to become Steve Jobs who gets fired from the company he created, you know, and that was thrown, you know, that was for arrogance, lack of leadership, lack of, and it took that humility and that punch in the gut for lack of a better word to come back, stay in his zone of brilliance, innovator marketer, right? Let other people that are better than him at other jobs do their job. And look, it's probably 1 of the biggest brands on earth now from that mistake and from that humility and learning and asking for help. And so, it's a big moment for all of us to take note of that.

13:11 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. A little taste of humble pie never hurts. And then at the end of the day. 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 Tommy, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:27 – Tommy Breedlove

It means you're a leader and you're a servant and you have a responsibility for the lives of your people, of your customers, and it's a heavy, heavy responsibility. It's a responsibility to provide value in the world. It needs accountability. It needs humbleness. It needs all of the great things we talked about. So being a CDO is serving. And you can lead via servant. There are some of the greatest leaders in the world who are servers, probably the best leaders in the world. Take that responsibility. If you keep your people and your purpose first, the profit will come. It absolutely will. I've seen it time and time again. I've seen it countless times in my life and in my client's life. Stay humble, serve, listen, lead, and put your people first and the profit will come.

14:18 – Gresham Harkless

I love it. People and purpose ahead of profits. And I think so many times we get that switched around as we kind of talked about, you know, before, but I think that as you said, you know, the Gandhis of the world, those people that really have made a legendary impact and have done phenomenal things are those people that understand that. And it might in some ways manifest itself for money and other times it may not, but the impact is 1 of the biggest things that we see. I absolutely love that. Tommy.

14:42 – Tommy Breedlove

Thank you, man. Thank you, brother.

14:44 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I appreciate that. Yeah, absolutely. And I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can tell our readers and listeners. And of course, how best they can get an overview, get a copy of the book, and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

14:58 -Tommy Breedlove

Yeah, brother. If you want to, if you've, if you liked what we've been throwing down here and you dig it, because of the time that we're recording this, it's a troublesome time with a lot of fear and anxiety and uncertainty in this world. And we've opened up chapters of the book to help with that for free. So if you go to Tommybreedlove.com and I'm a Southern guy, I'll spell this slash GIFTS. I hope that came through clearly. We're giving away the financial confidence, the financial freedom, and the financial mindset chapters because I think everybody needs a little in these uncertain times.

We're also giving away the Mastering Your Mindset chapter. So check it out there And hopefully, you'll dig it. Hopefully, you'll apply some of those lessons in your life. Reach out to me anytime. We put love and light, inspiration, goodness, business hacks, tips all the time. We were, we're on the good side of social media, not the toxic side of social media. So check us out at Tommy Breedlove. And if you ever want to reach out to me, Tommy at tommybreedlove.com, I'd be happy and humbled to hear from you.

15:55 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Tommy, I'm happy and humbled that you were able to kind of join us on the show. We will have the links and information in the show notes. And I definitely appreciate you for offering the chapters, for writing the book, reminding us of how we can be legendary in our lives and our businesses and relationships that we have. So I appreciate you so much again, my friend. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:13 – 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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