#83 Thriving in Business and Family: Tom Telford’s Secrets to Success

The greatest entrepreneurs, they have it together up.

Here is it possible to really truly succeed in the business world without the toll being.

Too big if you want to build an incredible life after one relationship first.

Gentlemen, welcome to the formidable Family Man podcasts.

I'm your host, Greg Denning today.

My guest is Tom Telford.

And man, we have, we had a fun conversation today.

Thomas moved to a small town where Rachel and I lived when we were first married.

And that's where we adopted our our oldest and then our two sons, the next two sons were born in that community.

That's where I trained for triathlons and spent a ton of time on my bike up there and snowboarding in those mountains.

And, and he's right there.

He lives next door to a good friend of mine.

So just just had a fun conversation with all the things we have in common and even our his daughter and my son are in Madrid, Spain right now at same time.

And just just a great conversation.

But Tom had started, he was working in the financial services industry and started and sold companies organizations there and then moved into the mental health sector.

And he is the Co founder of Levo, which is a mind care company.

He's also the Co host of Brain Stoke podcast and the organization of Brain Stoke.

And then his wife actually has a clinic where she does counseling and coaching.

And we talked about the his story and his own journey with his wife and their journey through making their own mental health and mental and emotional well-being and, and telling a story.

I mean, he just.

Shares some great.

Insights for all of us about how we can hope with what happens in life because there will always, always be stressors.

There will always be struggles, gentlemen.

And finding the best ways to cope with it is so important.

And we talked through business and we talked through how to start, run and exit businesses and create wealth and, and the toll that takes in life because there is a toll and stress is a toll.

But Tom points out that the toll booth cannot be our most important relationships.

ANYWAYS, lots of great Nuggets in here.

Just a fun conversation.

Gentlemen.

Enjoy this episode.

All right, Tom, welcome to the to the show, brother.

Super excited to, to have a conversation with you today and, and learn from you and, and it's been it's fun.

You know, some for the listeners.

He and I have a lot in common, a lot of mutual friends, a lot of, well, you're, you're in the playground where I played for years, you know, seeing your pictures and, and like right there, I spent a lot of time right there in your backyard and I miss him.

Anyways, we're super excited to have you here on the show.

And why don't you just just give us a, your, your story, your background and, and we'll, we'll just dive in from there.

Thanks, Greg.

It is an honor to spend some time with you.

And yes, I'm, I'm in the backyard of my dreams.

So I I feel fortunate to be where I'm at.

In fact, we'll dive into this more, but I'm sitting in the spot that for the last, you know, I'm 47 going on 48.

So I'm just going to say since the time I was roughly 8 years old, so the last 40 years, I dreamt about where I'm sitting right now in the location in the chair out, you know, out looking out the windows at what I've been a call snow basin ski resort.

I grew up ski racing.

I was a ski bomb.

It was my where my playground was.

And so I, I feel fortunate to be in a spot recording right now with you in a place that I, I had dreamt about for 40 years.

So this is cool.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Yeah, and to make, well, I love that whole story of taking a dream and just keep on chasing it until you make it a reality.

There's there's So yeah.

And I hope to dive into that very thing today with you and for listeners.

You know, when I record podcasts, I always think about an audience that I would love to reach.

I'm just picturing who that is.

And if I could choose that demographic, it would be something about, you know, that the 12 year old, you know, to, I'm going to call it a 30 year old, male or female.

And they're trying to figure out how do I get what I want out of life, fight the challenges that I know that are in front of me.

So with that context in mind, maybe I'll just start and share a little bit of my background.

So I was raised in Kaysville by Gary and Jill Telford, some amazing people.

My dad is a cowboy at heart.

I grew up sitting on the fence at rodeos.

He was a calf Roper, A-Team Roper.

I was raised by a mother who's, you know, the daughter of a farmer.

And so between the cowboy and the farmer, you know, I was taught very young work ethic, grit and some grace along the way.

So that is just part of my, you know, upbringing of who I am.

And yeah, I mean, that's that's a little bit of background in terms of just, you know, my story growing up in Kaysville, UT.

Love it and and how long have you been married and and tell us about your your family and your kids real quick.

I am married to Liza.

We knew each other growing up.

We were introduced by sisters when we were teenagers.

And she's the love of my life.

And we'll talk more about that relationship and and why one amazing relationship makes all the difference in life.

We have three children, Jackson, who's 23, Jackson 23, Aspen, who's 20, who's about to wrap up an LDS mission in Spain in three months and then.

James, wait, what?

Which mission is he in?

She is in the Madrid South.

Oh my goodness, my son is serving in Madrid North right now.

Oh, you're kidding.

That's so awesome.

Crazy so.

He's in, yeah, northern Spain for the most part, which is just.

He's just outside of Madrid right now and loving it.

Yeah, ironically, I, I mean, that's actually where I where my daughter just was.

So they, they probably, they may have even known each other, even though the missions are split.

There is, you know, there's one temple in Madrid and they all end up, you know, on the temple.

Block that's so cool.

Love that another.

Connection.

Yeah.

Wild small world, man.

And then James is our caboose, so to speak.

He's 14.

He's at Morgan High, which is your stomping grounds.

And yeah, just loving it there.

So yeah, that's that's our children.

I love it, man.

OK, so let's let's just dive into that.

Let's let's start with the marriage thing.

And you you hit it right out of the out of the gates.

It's the most important relationship.

And how did you come to to that?

You always believe that you guys were you know each other for a super long time, but how is it you you've created a a a marriage that's that's working and thriving and important we.

Have known each other a long time and what's interesting about that concept of you know, and I say this openly to people, I speak it you graduating classes often then I tell them, you know, if if you want to build an incredible life, master one relationship first start with one amazing relationship.

And our relationship, even though we, you know, were, you know, relatively high school sweethearts, she dumped me a couple times.

We wrote each other on and off, you know, through missions.

But there was something that happened during our mission year.

She actually I went on a mission to Minnesota.

She was called to serve in Venezuela, but he came home after eight weeks of being in the MTC.

She got really sick and she was diagnosed with OCD and anxiety.

And that was the beginning of this, you know what, what I'm going to call the river that runs through it, which is our mental health and that mental health story, You know, we did not necessarily know how that would play out during those years, but in our early 20s, we scaffolded, right, our own mental health story.

And, and even before we were married and engaged, mental health was a thing.

And, and I say that now just to kind of set the stage that 20 years later, our lives are totally entrenched in mental health.

We own 3 mental health companies together.

So those early formidable years, to use your, you know, to use the word formidable, it was rough.

You know, at the beginning of the scaffolding of our life was rough.

I mean, it started with a beautiful marriage.

You know, we were in love, but that relationship in those early years was tough, not because we didn't love each other, but because we brought to the marriage two people who are not perfect, in fact, two people who were, you know, relatively high functioning but broken in our own way.

And so in those early years, we had some tough stuff with anxiety, OCD, some mental health things that first started with her challenges.

But quickly as an entrepreneur, you know, I to this date, I've only been on a salary a total of two months in, in the last 25 years.

I don't really know what a salary is like.

So as I was in school, as I was going through my education and she was wrapping up hers, I was also an entrepreneur.

I started right out of the gates, you know, as an entrepreneur in the financial sector.

And so between her challenges with, you know, mental health and then quickly, you know, as I started as an entrepreneur, what I realized is that the greatest entrepreneurs, they have it together up here.

Most people think entrepreneurship is about an incredible idea or a this business strategy or marketing or all of those things.

And it's true, you need to be very formidable about those things.

But if you are not mentally strong, you are not going to do well in entrepreneurship.

It is the muscle of entrepreneurship.

So intellect, mental strength, resilience, there's a number of buzz terms for it today, but if you want to be an entrepreneur, you better scaffold the mind early and high because you're going to need it.

And so those early years of our marriage in our relationship, we face some tough stuff.

One Side Story, just to kind of frame it, we were about nine months married and we were living in Salt Lake in close to EU.

It's really, you know, rundown apartment complex.

We were on the second level and one night I heard some noise and it was on our balcony.

Can't really figure out what was going, but as soon as I was awakened and alert enough, I recognize someone was trying to break into our apartment.

So about the time that I could get out of bed, about the time that I could pull a shotgun out of our closet, which we'll talk about guns and violence, you know, maybe as we go through this.

But I barely got the gun up in my hands, pointed it at the door, our bedroom door.

And the door flew open and I was standing eyeball to eyeball with an intruder with a shotgun like inches from his face.

And so these tough moments of newlyweds, her mental health, me being an entrepreneur, both going to school, trying to work, and then we get broken in.

And so that just kind of frames for listeners and people to know.

Those were tough years.

We faced some really tough stuff in our early marriage.

And that became the recipe though for really scaffolding a strong marriage where two people rely and lean into each other versus being pulled apart.

And it took work, you know, it took a lot of work.

In fact, that time frame became really challenging in what are we now going to do?

So are we going to lean on, are we going to run?

Are we going to flight or are we going to fight?

And there were moments where both of us wanted to take flight.

We got to get out of here.

I'm not safe in the marriage.

What's going on?

You know, there was a point where I remember in my own mental health, probably a night, the night or two nights after we were broken into, I had visited with my parents.

I had visited with her parents.

And I remember thinking, I'm not ready to be an adult.

I don't know if I have the tools to be an adult married and do this.

And it was I questioned my man card that night, my human card, just my adult card.

Like, can I really do this?

Am I capable of doing this?

And there was a feeling that night of I can protect her.

I did.

But who's who's got me right?

And, and as much as I love her that night, I did not necessarily feel safe from a physical danger perspective in that situation.

And so it just really made me question who I was, what am I capable of?

Who do I rely on?

Who's got my back?

And.

Fundamental questions for all of us, so powerful.

Yeah, some really tough stuff.

And what I recognized was regardless of what she brought and her brokenness and regardless of what I brought in my brokenness, if I could just take a step back for a minute and think, do I love this woman?

And the answer is I would have died that night protecting her.

Most people think they would.

Most people, you know, kind of they dream about that, you know, or Daydream about what would happen if I was in a situation where I would have to protect the person I love the most.

And what I told myself was that yes, you would and yes, you did.

Now, luckily I didn't have to pull a trigger that night.

I think the outcome is is significantly different if if that happens, but not that we would have left the marriage in the relationship, but we were tested very young in the marriage of what I would I do anything it takes to be with this person.

And the answer is to this day, I die over this woman.

Everything that we have done and created, the why behind it, the how behind it, all of the, you know, the questions have really brought me back to this one person, this one person that I die over, you know, in this life.

And so, yeah, man, I mean, that's, that's who she is, that's who I am.

You know, I I don't even question, you know, what our relationship is like.

And do I have, you know, a partner, a friend, a lover, You know, she's my person.

She's, she's my partner in life.

So.

Man, that's so powerful and so profound because it, it becomes, it's the framework, it's the chassis, it's the foundation that everything else is built on.

And, and in those early years, well, like all of us, we're all doing that.

And then you bring some additional elements and it makes it even harder.

You're just trying to figure out how to make it work.

So if you answer the first question of like, do I truly love this woman?

And I'm am I willing to fight for this?

If it's a yes then man, you just get to.

Work.

Figuring.

Out I want to ask.

Brother, if like now looking back on it, you know, with the with the passing of the years, there's this, this added insight, his perspective, this wisdom that comes.

So now looking back at it from where you are and everything you guys have learned and, and what's super cool, I love, I love these kind of stories because my story is similar.

My passion, my drive really was solving my own original problem.

And, and a lot of ways for you guys too.

Like you're, you're in the mental health space now because because you experienced it first hand.

But but I want to ask like what are some things you guys did wrong that now like looking back, if you had known then what you know now, what would you do?

Do differently, We would have approached coping entirely different.

So, and this is really key and central and I hope people, you know, catch on to this concept because the things that we did wrong in the early years as entrepreneurs, as as married people, as you know, the way that we, the way that we dealt right, just how do you deal with life?

We did it wrong in the way that we had our coping strategies for how we dealt with the stresses of life were I, I believe this that you're only going to to be able to rely on the coping mechanisms that you have built.

And if you don't build positive ones, you're going to revert to the negative.

So for example, I was raised in a family where and I love my parents and I love my family.

They gave me a foundation that is just incredible.

But I think if you asked the same question to my parents, they would say we did get some things wrong.

And So what I believe that we, you know, my wife and I got wrong in the early years is that he brought her way of coping and I brought mine, right?

That's all, you know.

Well, what I brought to the marriage in coping was tough conversations create anger, frustration and conflict in a marriage.

And above all else, harmony is the most important thing, right?

That's how I was taught from an LDS.

Perspective.

Avoid the tough conversations so you can have harmony and peace.

Yes, sweep it all under the rug, you know, don't talk about it.

Hold it all inside.

Well, what happens when you hold inside smoke or something that you know it can combust, you blow up, right?

And so the inability to communicate well and fight well, have good productive conflict did not exist.

The second thing is that because I am LDS and the way that I was raised with all of the, you know, values, all the things, all good things, but I associated myself worth and worthiness to am I good at law of chastity?

Am I good at word of wisdom, all those things, right?

These standards.

The problem with that is that when you're in a stressful time frame and your need to cope with things, you're going to pull from the areas that you still feel like you can maintain your worthiness and right your good standing with God.

Well, what does that mean in LDS culture?

Right.

I'm not going to drink a case of beer.

I'm not going to smoke weed.

But will I overeat every day, all day?

Yes, and and I did.

And So what are the implications of not communicating well, fearful of conflict and eating your feelings And the challenges of that are not good, right?

But you are going to reap the fruits of that labor.

Well, it's not productive.

And so in those early years, what we did wrong is that we did not have great coping, right?

We we battled, you know, each other at times because we were we were fighting each other because we were feeling internal conflict.

I doubt.

That is huge.

I, I, I guess I just want to stop for a second and really emphasize that the fight that's happening with those in proximity is so often because of internal conflict.

Yeah, I mean, think about it as a parent when your child comes home, right?

If you're if you're Jill Telford and your son Tommy, who has ADHD and is dyslexic, comes home from school and she's been trying to stay in his chair and not have his teacher say Tommy 80 times a day, right?

He's going to bring home this energy that he needs to get out.

And what does he do?

He's going to blow up on his safe person.

So I'm sure my mom for years and years was like, she was my whipping post, right?

Which is horrible.

But if you bring that to a marriage, right?

If you don't have a way to get stressors out, you're going to take it out on the people around you, right?

So this is the dad who's screaming at his kids?

And his kids are like, why does dad hate me?

And dad's like, I don't hate you.

I just need to put my anger and frustration somewhere that I can't do at work because it's not safe at work.

If I yell at my wife, then that's abusive, right?

And so these, this conflict that's going on inside a human has to come out.

And so coping with stressors was not it.

It just took us years to flex those muscles.

So what happened?

This great blessing?

We moved to Southern California when our oldest was a baby.

And that whole experience in Southern California taught me hundreds of lessons.

You know, mentorship from the guy that I partnered with for a time there.

But the best thing that we brought home from Southern California had nothing to do with business, had everything to do with that.

She and I committed to a lifestyle of running and getting outside and feeling sweat and sun and stoke, right, which is Brainstoke, which is a podcast in a company that I own.

The five s s, right?

Really, I learned those s s, which is serotonin.

I learned to care for myself during that time frame in Southern California.

And so did she.

So we were not runners.

We were, you know, I was, you know, I love cycling.

I, you know, I'm, I'm an athlete at heart.

But during that time frame in Southern California, I dropped 40 lbs.

You know, I found myself again, you know, she found running.

It was just something we would do.

We, we would put our son in the middle of a football field at a private school.

It is, you know, in the stroller.

And she and I would just run laps around, you know, that, you know, we did that several times a week.

And so that time frame of learning to scaffold good coping, right?

Just being active, exercising our, our clean eating started during those years of just can we eat better?

Can we take care of ourselves?

So hoping has now evolved.

We've added a number of other things to our marriage and our life, but positive coping was something that those early years we were forced to figure out because of just some of the conflicts that we had.

My health, which I can talk a little bit more.

I, I'm, I'm the health insurance industry's worst nightmare, right?

They're not making money on me.

Same.

Brother.

We can talk, we, we can talk more about that, but so just coping, right, just huge.

Do we have, do we have good coping?

And, and how do we, you know, do it together and make it more of our lifestyle together?

And one other thing I would say that I think has been absolutely magic for us in our relationship, regardless of our financial situation and regardless of what was going on in our life with our children, we always found a way for she and I to get away without children once or twice a year, at least one time for a week with in a in a sunny destination where we just soaked in literally binge took in serotonin, sleep, sun sweat, sex, which I am going to say, you know, all of the serotonin things that you can have in your life to just refill the canteen and to re fall in love.

Liza would call it retelling your love story.

We just did this again recently.

This is so valuable to a relationship to truly invest in it even when it doesn't make financial.

I mean, there were years where some of those trips at probably ended up on a credit card.

Sure, absolutely.

But.

But yeah, but the investment, right, is now what?

We've been married almost 26 years and I would still die for this woman, right?

And I know she feels the same.

That's just who we are.

We have each other's back.

And, you know, in a time where so many of our friends and people around us where their marriages are going sour or South, they may not be ending the marriage, but, you know, they're cohabitating, right?

They're in the marriage out of duty, right?

They're staying in it.

It's getting better.

Yeah.

But it, but it's but ours, I feel like is accelerating, right?

We're we keep we keep going to these summits.

And the thing that allows us to see the next summit in the relationship is that we are investing in that time right that week away or we just went to Fiji to celebrate our our 25 year anniversary for two weeks.

And what we covered the ground, we covered in our relationship in two weeks together without children, without any distraction.

It was pretty remarkable.

So yeah, we do Rachel.

I do a honeymoon trip every year and and we have for years and years.

Obviously when there's little kids, you know, that's it, it really hard or your wife's pregnant or nursing or something that's tough.

But but as soon as it's possible and sometimes before it's financially possible, we have to make those investments into the marriage because you're absolutely right.

It's just a week away with just the two of you remembering that you're in love, a man and a woman in love and and recommitting to each other.

It is magic and so powerful.

It is.

And that's what we began with, right?

So we were asked to to teach recently, you know, because of what she's involved in, we're involved in, we get asked to speak or teach often, which is funny because I should not be allowed to talk about mental health or relationships for that matter.

But I can't speak to the things that we've done wrong.

And that is, that's one thing, you know, we've done right, is to be in situations to remind ourselves that before the dream house, before the companies we've built and sold, even before our children, it all came because we originally fell in love with the human that we wanted to build it all for.

And so even as I sit in this house that I've dreamt about for, you know, for the last 40 years, I would not be here today without her, you know, and, and it, it was for us.

And so anyway, I think that's a great reminder of just, you know, flexing that memory muscle of what it was in the beginning.

You know, and I know people say they change and I know that they do.

And there's all sorts of different circumstances and marriages and, and why they fail or don't do well.

But that's been one thing you know that that we've actively done together is to lean into the memory muscle of why we started it in the beginning.

And, and get real strategic about what you're going to do to, to make things different.

I keep thinking of, of one of my all time favorite quotes.

It's by a Greek philosopher named Archilicus.

He says we don't rise to the level of our expectations.

We fall to the level of our training.

It's, it's like, that's, that's where we operate.

And, and your guys moved to California, shifted your, your training, it shifted your habits and your practices.

And it's, it's that simple.

It's it's that powerful.

Right, that's really good because again, go back to coping.

So what happens in when the relationship has stress?

How did the two of you cope?

Does one bail and go to mom?

You know their parents does 1 you know, spend time online pornography.

Does one go to the bar?

Like what is your coping when relation strips relationship stress comes.

And so if you don't have a way to cope with relationship stress in a positive way, that could be, you know, Liza's world now you know it merit she's a merits therapist.

So, you know, if you don't have hoping with, you know, for your relationship stress in a positive way that brings you back together or that pushes you to lean into each other, it's not good, right?

And so those are, Yeah.

I mean, you fall to what your training is.

And so if you have no relationship training other than what you saw growing up, almost nobody says that they saw their parents in a perfect relationship, right?

I mean, when people ask me, when young kids ask me like, why do you say or why do you say that the most important thing that you did as an entrepreneur is to fall in love, right?

Why would I say that about business, that falling in love with someone is the most important thing?

And there's a lot there, But the, but the truth is that a really great marriage, I mean an awesome marriage takes every tool and skill that you're going to need to be a great business owner.

And at the core of it is impeccable communication and the ability to fight productively.

When I go to business meetings, when I sit at a board meeting, if you go to boards and it's harmony and everybody just wants to leave happy, they get along, I'll show you an organization that's going nowhere, right?

Exactly.

But, but if you go to a board meeting where they're just like at each other's throat and they productively have conflict, they're going somewhere they have high expectations.

Well, Liza and I in our marriage, if people thought, well, a great marriage looks like love and you're always hugging you.

No, we, we fight all that.

We just argued this morning over some stuff, but it was an argument about betterment.

It was holding each other accountable for a better and a higher standard of what we want.

So one of my closest buddies said something to me years ago.

His name is Tyler Talbot.

He was a a Davis Dart as well.

Tyler and I worked for, you know, with each other for years.

And one day we were talking with each other on a business trip and, and I said to him, Hey, I'm curious, how would you describe why you're, you know, marriage has worked?

And he said something really interesting that day.

I've never heard it described this way, but he just said, you know, his his wife's name's Dai or Diane.

Dai just does it for me.

And that term of just does it for me.

A lot of guys would say that and they would think it's about attraction or sexual or whatever.

But what he was saying, I said, hi, what does that mean to you?

And he said, she makes me better.

So when he says does it for me, he's talking about reaching.

She makes me reach and be a better version of me.

And at the very core that is my wife, you know, I, I know that I am better.

You know, for me to flee that relationship would mean that I'm abandoning self improvement.

That's how I believe that relationship is.

I totally agree and it's.

And she says very little, by the way, She's not like preaching, like you better put your socks away.

And like, it's not that betterment.

It is just the way she lives and treats people.

I want to be a better human.

You just, I have to say much.

And I just desire to be better.

That's one of the greatest benefits in a marriage, in a partnership, is this ability to get that refinement and inspiration and motivation and drive to improve.

Can I ask you, because I'm, I'm very curious and I know that listeners will be too, as you were building businesses, you, you, you built and sold multiple businesses and, and in this path of entrepreneurship, man, it, there's a lot there.

There's so much there.

During those years, how did, how did you stay invested in her and the kids?

Like how, what did you do?

And there was probably some, I'm, I'm sure there was some mistakes there as well, but there was some good things too that you must have done like how did you get through that space and, and hit priorities as priorities.

So, yeah, I mean, this is going to get real and raw, right?

But we're just going to go there.

She and I actually went to dinner on Valentine's couple, you know, last weekend.

And on our way back, we had this very blunt and honest and real conversation about this thing.

And the topic was know really what was going on during those years and if there was a moment in time when I was traveling at the peak and it was a moment just to kind of frame it for people.

There's moments in business where the market you're fit and the demand both in a vacuum, right?

That's a term to use like when when there's a vacuum for what you do and your expertise and people are literally sucking you in.

They want what you have.

You go all in, right, To use the term shooting fish in a barrel.

There was a moment in my career where it was shooting fish in a barrel.

And I was, I mean, I just knew every time I got on the plane, the dollar figure for every trip was it was insane.

I mean, it was just like, is this real?

Could this really be happening?

It's a peak of that.

My children were in the, you know, 11 to 12 years old and down.

And there was a moment in that, in that time frame where my daughter was getting baptized.

And so I came in town, you know, we had family.

Everyone, you know, was it was showing up at this baptism.

And I remember standing there and, you know, in the baptismal clothing with my daughter, having pictures taken with her.

And then I remember walking down in the baptismal font, right, getting ready to baptize her, immerse her in the water in that moment.

And I remember having this thought to myself of am I present?

Am I here and present in my own mind and in this experience for her.

And I started speaking the baptismal prayer.

And I said it wrong, right?

But she's, you know, you got to say it right, right.

It's got to be the right words perfectly.

And I said it wrong.

And my dad, bless him, said as he was standing there as a witness, he said, this is, you know, and he corrected it.

Like, this is what you need to say.

And then I said it.

We went on, no big deal.

But years later, looking back on that moment, I recognized that I was not present in my own life.

Even at that experience with my daughter, I was not fully present.

Now I love her.

I don't think that she felt it any differently.

It wasn't about me anyway, but it was a moment in time of me recognizing every entrepreneur pays a pole, right?

It'll be interesting when I die if somehow, someway, at some point someone says, hey, those years of entrepreneurship, they took X amount of years out of your life, by the way, right?

So entrepreneurship by its, its very core is stress.

There's so much stress.

Well, if you study stress.

And by the way, yesterday I did a podcast, you know, with the guy by the name of Doctor Corey Rich.

And Doctor Corey Rich I heard speak at a conference last year.

And in that conference he showed a Harvard study that said at a minimum, at a minimum 90% of every sickness and disease that people are treated for.

Think of that 90% is directly correlated to stress.

And then he said further research has shown that it's 95% right.

So I just want people to hear this.

Would I go back and change being an entrepreneur?

Absolutely not.

But if you don't think it's going to take right something out of you and out of the relationships, you have to pay the toll.

And if people in relationships become the toll booth, that's a problem because at some point.

Well, that hits.

At some point, you're going to have this internal conflict where you wake up one day and you go, wait.

In the very beginning, I started the businesses because I wanted to love and take care of my people.

And now the business is actually pulling deposits out of those people.

It's hurting those people.

So, yeah, it was hard.

It was freaking hard, Greg.

I mean, it was, it was incredibly challenging, you know, during those years and, and there was a lot of stressors on both our family and relationships and me, we did a lot of things right.

We still took those trips.

We still have weekly date nights.

We tried to be present.

I tried to coach my kids teams.

I try not to miss games, but by me, you know, flying home at crazy hours in the night so that I could be home and coach my son's baseball game.

I would be wrong if I didn't say that my physical health, you know, got hurt as a result of it.

So when I joke about just it at some point, right again, the stressors you will break down.

So today if I look back, I have had four knee surgeries, a shoulder surgery, a back surgery, a back surgery.

I I know the back surgery is directly correlated to ski racing and all the things, but walking through airports and sleeping on a different kind of bed 100 nights a year, it had its implications for sure on, you know, my back.

I have had Epstein Barr virus.

I have had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue.

I have had the swine flu, right like it takes its toll.

And so when I see people online entrepreneurs showing their Lamborghinis and helicopters and, you know, start a business and you can be a billionaire, whatever.

I mean, you can have a great lifestyle, but there is a poll to be paid.

And if you don't have the right positive coping skills in your life, entrepreneurship will crush.

You.

I'm just going to say it again.

You will pay a toll booth that it's probably you can't come back from unless you have the right coping.

So I'll talk about brain stoke in a minute and why brain stoke is so critical, you know, as an organization because it teaches positive coping.

But those entrepreneurship years were an incredible opportunity.

They were, they were incredible.

I learned so much.

Our lifestyle, our lives that we have today are directly correlated to those that we built.

And the partner, to be frank, I mean, I've had an incredible opportunity to ride the coattails of 20 or 30 amazing mentors, including my business partners in that last company that I sold, Rich Brock and Chris Burns Fazzy, a man and a woman who are just the most giving and generous humans that I've ever known.

And they also happen to be the most dynamic entrepreneurs I've ever met and been able to partner with.

So the combination of those two things has allowed me to to be where I am today.

So.

I love it.

Yeah.

Let me ask a hard, Let me ask a hard question.

A lot of the listeners are entrepreneurs and businessmen who who've had a lot of success.

Some of them are still right in the middle of it or kind of starting that journey.

Is it possible again?

Again, looking back on your life, I'm guarantee there's some things you do differently.

Probably.

I'm sure there's some things you are doing differently in the businesses you currently have.

Is there a way to minimize the stress or the strain to keep your, your family, your relationships, your health from being the toll booth?

Is it possible to really, truly succeed in the business world without the toll being too big, Without the toll being irreparable?

Absolutely.

It is, but to your point, right, you're, you're going to rely on the training and the knowledge and the capabilities that you have built to be able to do it.

And so when you're building a business and if you do it right, by the way, you know you're going to burn the boats, which means you're all in there.

There is no going back, right?

And so when you're all in, that means you're all in like that you as the human are all in.

And so if you're all in, how how do you serve the family, master, the children, master, the church master, right?

It's very challenging because you you're pulled a number of different ways.

This morning I sat and ate breakfast with my wife and she said, how you doing?

And I said, I'm being pulled 100 different directions by horses, right?

Just think of that thought like that's just, that's how it is now.

It's stressful and you're being pulled a lot of different directions.

But Greg, this is a key thing that I want people to hear.

But this is who I am, right?

It is who I am.

So I was not built to go to an 8 to five job and bless everybody who does, right?

If I could turn off my mind and go do 8:00 to 5:00 and then leave work at work and come home and have dinner and play with the family like that sounds amazing to me.

Like when people are like, oh, today I've been binging this show on Netflix.

I'm like, what?

I mean, how do you have to ask that?

But I don't no, I, I mean, I, I thought that I, I can't stay up late, but I go to bed at, you know, 9 because I'm already in tomorrow's To Do List right.

And so entrepreneurship at its very core is an obsession.

You are obsessively compelled to build and grow and do stuff.

I mean, right now I'm, I, I'm, we own two companies.

We're launching one right now.

But, and I have to say this just, you know, so people hear it like the obsession in the back of my mind, I have a Unicorn that I've been building for years and someday I'm going to launch it.

I'm working on it a little bit, but it's a Unicorn, right?

That's just who I am.

And so sometimes people here, entrepreneurs talk about it and when they're talking about the stress of it or how hard it is, if I mean, for a lot of people that I'm sure they're going like just stop then like just stop doing it.

Like do something different.

That would be like saying to someone go, you know, go be somebody different than you're than you are today.

You are, you know, I mean, it's at my very core, my character is entrepreneurship like it.

It's just who I am.

And so I don't know, that's rambling, you know, somewhat, but I.

Like it, I mean, you, if you're, if you're happy with that, if you're, if you're fulfilled with that, if that gives you meaning and purpose And like, like even right now, after all of your successes, if you're still, you wake up and want the pressure, you get up and, and like I, I like to say to my clients, I'm like, Hey, fellas, like we eat pressure for breakfast and a little extra for dessert, right.

There's there's something to that.

Do you feel like it, like you found a, a spot where you that that feels just fantastic and you're striving in there?

Does it feel fantastic?

Right.

Well, so let's talk about let's do that.

Let's.

Let's let's talk about that very thing, right?

Like there and there's a buzzword today like going on out there and I'm going to be on, you know, a few more podcasts that I've been asked to talk about to talk about resilience, right?

So what does it mean to become resilient?

How do you how do you become capable of just taking bullets all the time?

And the answer is then you get in the arena and get shot at all the time, right?

And so how do you scaffold resilience?

How do you flex the resilience?

And the answer is you live in stress, you live with frustration.

So it might absolute best when I'm at my best and just in the flow state I am solving problems.

That was exactly.

Trying to overcome any problem.

So today, and I'll just say this, but I won't name the company, one of the companies that I'm involved with is, I've been at it for three years, right?

We're now beyond three years and I haven't made a dime.

I don't take a salary.

I've made no money.

Working, but I'm so.

Committed.

I am so committed to solving those problems because if we do and we have, I just don't take income from it.

But when you solve something that is so deeply meaningful, that is crushing families, like of all the problems to solve, if you could figure out a way where families have better tools, you called it training.

But if families just got better and individuals got better in their mental health, I don't know that there's a better 'cause right, that I could spend my time on.

So you have to.

I hope some entrepreneurs, some business owners hear that.

Like I believe I was called to be an entrepreneur.

I believe it's a calling.

It literally is.

You know, I've read a color or been on or heard a couple podcasts recently.

Casey Baugh, who has a podcast called Case studies, Casey Boss speaks about this with his some of his audience, a lot of his audience about business is a spiritual journey, right?

So when I think about, you know, spirituality, part of my spirituality is what are my callings?

What was I called to be a disciple of?

And I feel more spirit in my life in business meetings and meeting people in business who are trying to solve truly, not because they want to be billionaires, but because they want to solve human problems.

And if they do, the outcomes for humanity are significant.

That's incredible.

What a gift to humanity to solve some of these things.

So yeah, man, it's it to me.

It's a calling.

It's, it feels more like A cause at times for some of these institutions, this Unicorn that's been, you know, building in the back of my head for a long time.

If I can solve that somehow, the implications of it are significant and not just for my little small piece of the world.

It is, wow, people who can connect in an entirely different way that is going to help build their scaffolding, you know, in their life.

I mean, that fires me up, you know, I mean, what I, what I deal with that stress.

Would I take those bullets all day?

You know, that the purpose of that is worth all of the, you know, the breakdown in, in physical health.

So yeah.

Anyway, that hopefully gives you a flavour.

Yeah.

Absolutely, because there's so much meaning and so much purpose and, and a commitment to a 'cause that's bigger than ourselves, bigger than money.

It it, it's solving problems and helping people.

Man, I love that.

And that's yeah.

And I.

Still call to do it because when you sit on a on a podcast with a cool guy and you're looking out your windows at the view that you've dreamt about, right?

It forces you to think about something at which I can share with you another quick story, but it forces you to really think through how did I get here?

Right?

And the answer is nobody is self-made, right?

I, I believe that to my core there nobody is self-made.

And so if you think through that, if nobody is self-made and I'm here because of incredible mentors and people who helped me get here, then what?

The answer is then I want to give back.

I want to lift other people like I've been lifted.

And what's amazing about that from a mental health perspective, right?

That the 4th S and the five s s of Brainstoke is served when you serve other people.

There is literally oxytocin going on in your brain.

And oxytocin is this incredible happy chemical that when you're helping somebody else in their life, the brain is rewarding you.

I call it, you know, God's meds.

One of God's meds is oxytocin.

And so giving back and lifting other people.

There is a high to that that is it's it's one of the highs as humans that we get to experience.

So yeah, I mean, I I just feel stoked about my life, but I can't be stoked about it without giving some thought to how did I get it?

And if I think, well, I got it through other people, then it's my right.

This is a, a leadership, you know, concept.

But if your leadership is driven by a belief of stewardship, I've been successful.

So I have a stewardship to do something right, to give back and to help other people like I've been helped.

That's so key.

Absolutely.

That's why I love to call that, at least for myself, it's a it's a moral obligation because we've been helped and and blessed and other people have stepped in when we needed it most and somebody's given us advice or mentorship or guidance.

And so the moral obligation comes with that, too, to pay it forward, as they say, or to pass it along and be there for other people to make a difference in their lives. 100%, brother.

Yeah.

And by the way, Greg, but you know, it's interesting people, I, I thought about this for some time now about flow state.

You know, what is the, what are you doing and what are the circumstances when you get into a flow state?

And for people that may hear that term steady flow state, just just dive into flow state and what it is.

But one of my definitions of flow state is that I can lose track of time when I'm in it.

I don't even think about time.

I just, it happens.

One of the ways that I get into flow state is having these mentorship and conversations like this where we are talking and sharing real world knowledge, experience and personal truths with each other.

And when two people are speaking their personal truths to each other and they're learning and growing from each other, that causes something to occur, right?

And there's a reason why they say that the opposite of addiction is connection.

And it's interesting to kind of study that.

But the reason that the opposite of addiction is connection is because when you connect with other people, there is chemicals going on in the minds of the two people.

And those chemicals are binding people together.

And so when you are connected with somebody and you have that chemical of connection going on between the two of you, you're not seeking outward in external coping.

You don't need drugs and alcohol because your, your brain is getting those happy chemicals through people, through connection, through connection to self, right.

I mean, I, I guys often will joke with me.

My wife will say that how can you go ride your bike for five hours alone?

Like who do you even talk to?

But what I am out there and I'm connected to nature or if I'm just letting my thoughts wander, there is an intimacy with self that is incredible.

That's there's some people will never understand because one, they won't put themselves in nature and go do that or two, they believe that someone else has to be involved in a discussion or, or the, you know, FOMO, whatever it is.

Like they just constantly rely on external or somebody else to reinforce how they feel connected.

But I can go spend hours by myself and feel deep connection, right to to self, to the divine.

There's so much there.

And so, yeah, these these chemicals that we've been blessed to have in our mind, you know, it a brain stuck.

We call it the daily dose DOSE.

Get your daily dose dose, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins.

If you can figure out a way to have daily dose in your life through these these activities, things just change.

I mean, your capability as a human is is off the charts.

Well, because you're now, you're, you're in line and, and you're allowing your body to do what it does and you're, you're clearing the, the rubble from your runway so you can get going and really move forward and make progress.

I, I want to emphasize something you're saying there with relationships.

First a relationship, a healthy relationship with yourself like you're talking about, and then those close relationships with the people right in your life.

If we if we don't figure out how to have those rock solid relationships.

Everything else is so much.

More difficult.

And there's so many problems that come in life simply because those relationships are not in a solid place, which you've articulated so well today.

And I can like that has to be a priority.

It does.

And I think that some people actually LDS families, you know, our LDS culture is that family comes first.

And that's a beautiful thing.

That's it's an incredible concept.

But part of the challenges in the world today is that, you know, LDS people can get married very young.

They immediately start having children and the children become right the focus, which is great.

You know, that that's not a bad thing.

But there's a lot of unhappy adults in our culture because they don't have a relationship with self.

And I'm not saying, you know, just ignore your children and, you know, don't take the responsibility that you should have to, you know, to help and parent and and be their guide.

But there are a lot of people who are struggling because they don't have a connection to self.

They don't get some self time in their lives.

And at some point, every human is going to hold in contempt or they're going to hold a grudge against others who have not allowed them to be connected to self, right?

Who wants to live in the skin of self when they don't enjoy or, you know, have a relationship with yourself?

And so, yeah, I'm not saying it needs to be hours on end, but the ability to have a little bit of me time in life is is.

So.

Positive and good.

Yep, so, so good.

I love that.

OK, let's this has been so good, Tom, I appreciate you so much, man.

Let's, let's kind of, let's kind of wrap up with, with some daily or weekly practices that you're living right now in your 40s as an entrepreneur with multiple businesses, wife and children.

Like what are you doing that people listening to say, Hey, I, I can try that.

I can do that.

I can try to implement that.

I'll, I'll give you know, see if it works for me as well.

What are some things that you, you just know, rock solid.

You can lean on that through the stressors, through the chaos, through whatever you know is happening.

What can you lean on?

Yeah.

What do you lean on?

I'm going to give you one thing.

I I could give you plenty, but I'll just give you 1 core thing since I was 21, when I was 21 years old, literally day 2 after my mission, I served in LDS mission in Minnesota.

I came home and what I learned from that experience was if you have a plan, it's not going to be perfect.

You're not going to accomplish everything, but you're going to feel really good about progress.

And so day 2 after my mission, I wrote a life plan.

I literally wrote in the journal this is what I want to do at 25303540.

And when I was, so I was literally 21 and I wrote a plan that said this is how my 21 year old brain worked.

I think it's possible that in double my lifetime, so at age 42, I am going to be retired, though that seemed reasonable, right?

Like, hey, I'm 21.

If I just double my life, like I can be done.

And what I meant by that was I don't want the pressure of having to work the same.

But I wrote it in and I started working towards a plan and I believed in it.

I thought about it annually.

I set goals.

I'm a goal setter.

And so I'm not going to necessarily dive into how my, my process, you know, is for goal setting, but there was a practice that I embraced and it's been a habit since I was 21 years old.

And that is that every Sunday night I sit down for 1020 minutes and I have a journal or a planner today.

I'm really liking.

I've worked, you know, through this and I'll just share this right now, you know, on here, the full focus planner and the full focus planner is it's my system and process for how I manage me, how I manage my time, my days, my goals, It's my, it's my process.

And so every Sunday night I dive into that and I make sure that what is going on in the week, the 5-6 days in front of me that they're planned.

And I know that three things are going to occur.

One, I'm going to feed my pocketbook.

The second thing I'm going to need to feed the relationships that I value the most.

And 3rd, I'm going to feed my physical, spiritual right capabilities.

And so I, if people followed me around in a day, they would think that I've got some sort of obsession with this book because I'm dedicated and I'm committed to it.

And the reason that I am is because the output of that years and years of doing it is that I don't have perfect years by any stretch, but I rarely have a year where I didn't quote win the year.

It just the outcomes of having those habits and behaviors in place have been significant to the point, Greg, where when I wrote that plan at 21 to retire at 42 in 2015, I was 38 and that changed my life.

When I sold that company, it changed everything.

Now today, you know, I am still investing in building and starting companies and doing these things, but I don't have to because I need to survive and put food on the table.

I do it because I have a deeper purpose, but all of the same habits and behaviors that I've been doing for or did you know for at that point, you know, it was, that was year 17, you know, into the process.

I'm still using it today.

And so because I set an intention and I wrote it down and I work towards it, and I set monthly and annual goals and then backed into the daily behaviors and habits that I needed to have every week to align with the monthly, quarterly and annual goals that drove the, you know, the, you know, 42 year old goal it all.

Supported itself.

And ironically, it just, it worked, you know, and what's bizarre as you look back is that you never know how it's going to scaffold or build.

You don't know what the tree is going to look like.

You just know that if you water it every day, you make sure that you're watering it every day, it is going to grow into something.

And what I can tell you is that days and weeks and months and years of watering a tree, it's going to shock you how big and beautiful that tree is.

It just will be.

And so when I think about just a life of, of accomplishment and progress, it really goes back to these habits.

So I'm glad you asked the question, you know, what, what have you done?

What are the practices that you do that you rely on this start on a Sunday night and have a plan, You know, and some days, you know, there's nothing on the day that I rode in there or whatever.

But it's rare, you know, it's, it's pretty often that, I mean, this morning I woke up at 5:00 and I was on my spin bike for an hour and a half.

And when I look back, you know, at the end of the spin today, this week, I have ridden 7 hours, right?

So I didn't sit down and try to ride one time, 7 hours, right?

It's been each day, right?

And so sometimes entrepreneurs or people, they want to go like, well, if I just go all in right now really fast that I'm going to, it'll turn out to something.

And the problem is, right, to go back to our how we started.

If you're that really obsessive person who thinks that you can build a company overnight, you're going to work really hard and it's going to be stressful.

And likely what's going to happen is you're going to wake up really tired the next day and the company's not built yet.

So you need to scaffold it over time.

You need to water the tree and make sure the roots are growing and expanding.

You know, as you want to build this and grow this massive tree.

So slow down, do it right, be consistent, but have a plan.

Work the plan and work.

The plan like wherever.

You're aiming is where you're going to go.

And so if you never aim, you're just going to be scattered, right?

And I think that, to be frank, I think the part of the problem today is that a lot of people are scrolling on social media.

They see a big life.

They see entrepreneurs who have killed it.

And they really want that.

I mean, they have a good vision for what they want out of life, but they don't know how to start, right?

They, they want to, they want the great idea that's going to get them there.

But ideas are fleeting.

You have to build you right?

And I fully believe this that there are no amazing companies out there.

They're amazing humans with lots of habits and behavior that just applied who they are to the business in a in a built something crazy right behind every amazing company that is out there is incredible people.

I mean, I'm very sharp people with incredible habits and behaviors who just figured out this process and a system for how to build something amazing.

But it's it's people.

I believe that even though today people would say, well, AI is going to take over, AI is not taking over.

I don't believe that.

I think it's going to be an incredible tool, but it is a tool for humans, right?

Humans aren't going away.

It's just another tool to accelerate what's possible.

So it's all people driven for the people.

So if you want to build something amazing, you better scaffold yourself, build the habits and behaviors every day.

Exactly.

And and the people are going to be the advantage.

And being that caliber of person is going to be the advantage because if you stay small, you don't build the scaffolding, and you try to compete with AI, you're going to get smoked.

Amen.

That's exactly right.

I love it, Tom.

So.

Many great insights, man.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your plan.

That is solid.

I love that.

OK, yeah, of course.

How can people connect with you, learn about your your businesses resources, get into the five s s and the dose.

Where where, where can we send all these listeners?

Yeah.

So a couple things you can find me on.

LinkedIn, you know, Tom Telford on LinkedIn, the three companies.

So Brain Stoke is an organization, you know, it's a, it's a mental health media company.

So Brain Stoke has a podcast, you know, we have, you know, cyclists who, you know, we sponsor ambassadors, you know, that were involved in we do collaboration with two or three companies.

I don't know if you've heard of Envy before.

Envy's, you know, a carbon fiber company that's based in Ogden.

So Envy is a partner of ours, Cornerstone Advisors, which is a Gardner Brown.

He's an incredible financial advisor, all supportive of Brainstock and what it's a trying, you know, to accomplishsobrainstock.com, you know, is the website for Brainstock.

We're on social media, you know, all of those platforms.

Levo, a mind care company.

Levo, if I'm a Utah and I need mental health care, Levo's a great place to start because it employs professionals who have the ability to assess, diagnose, and put you in a treatment plan of some kind.

It doesn't mean medication necessarily, but it is looking at the body to assess what's going on to then come up with a mental health plan.

Thank you.

Yep.

Yep, Solevo a mind.

Care company is is the other company.

And then the third one is my wife's therapy practice.

US Therapy Group is, is where people, you know, can get therapy.

So between those 3 organizations, you know, we're, we're pretty busy in the mental health space today of, of trying to help other people.

I love it and it's such an important work.

And and Matt, just thank you so much for for leaning into the healthy part of it like his get the body and the brain doing the right things.

We see everyday.

My wife sees.

Everyday at us therapy group and I and I see at Levo everyday people are at their worst spot, right?

They're they're in a bad way.

If they come to those two organizations, something's off.

What Brainstoke does is Brainstoke says don't let yourself get there.

There are certain circumstances if you're a child of an abused parent that's out of your control.

There's distress and eustress and distress are things that you can't control.

That is, you know, hurting you.

And that's what Levo and us therapy group are doing for people who are in distress.

But eustress which is chosen stressors, that's where we stay healthy and well.

So brain stroke is trying to get people to proactively sleep, sun sweat, get, you know, get your exercise, serve other people and stoke, do things that you're stoked about.

This Stokes me, you know, to spend time with you.

When people have the five s s in their life, it doesn't mean that they're not subject to challenges.

It just means your ability to cope is better, right?

I thought this morning I spent an hour and a half on my spin bike.

No matter what happened after that, today I've won the day.

It doesn't mean like I'm going to become a billionaire today.

It just means that whatever hits me, whatever bullets I'm going to take today, I'm capable because I spent an hour and a half of letting my brain fill all the chemicals of desire, accomplishment, the ability to be motivated, all of these feelings that we have conquering feelings, being formidable feelings, those hump to us when we are proactively leaning into, you know, those behaviors.

So thanks.

You can let me come on, Craig.

No, this is so cool because you address you.

Address your mind, body and spirit first thing in the morning.

You're ready to go.

Primed.

Primed to win the day.

Yeah.

You see that those days in the win year.

I love it.

Right.

Fantastic.

Tom.

Thank you so much, man.

I sure appreciate you being here and sharing your your insights and and everything you're doing, man, to try to solve problems and help people.

I love it brother.

Appreciate you.

So grateful Greg for the the opportunity.

Truly, I mean, of all the things that I could spend time doing now, it is this trying to share, you know, some of some of the blessings and you know, opportunities I've had with others.

So thanks for the platform, appreciate it, love it rather.