Jay: Hello. My name is Jay Walter, and this is rebuilding. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, a mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. So let's stretch our minds, find answers to problems, overcome fears, and rebuild our first kingdom. Welcome to another episode of rebuilding. I'm your host Jay Walter. Today we have a very special guest. His name is Tony Lloyd. Tony Lloyd is a TEDx speaker, podcast host and bestselling author of crazy good advice. 10 lessons learned from 150 leading social entrepreneurs. He is a former fortune 500 executive with extensive experience in strategic planning, talent management and leadership development. Tony is the host of the podcast social entrepreneur where he shares positive stories from under represented voices focused on solutions. Welcome, Tony. I appreciate you spending some time with me today. Tony: Well, thanks for having me on, Jay. I really appreciate you having me. Jay: Oh, it's always nice to have a, another voice and another point of view on things about, uh, rebuilding or, or, uh, taking charge of your life. Yeah, so, exactly. So tell me a little bit about what makes Tony, Tony? Tony: Uh, well, besides the insanity, I guess. Uh, so I, you know, I think in the, in the spirit of rebuilding, um, I, I had a corporate career and I, um, was, uh, you know, vice president in charge of learning and development talent, uh, talent development, uh, all those kinds of things. And I, I kinda came to this point where I thought, you know, it seems that corporations are focusing primarily on shareholder value, uh, in sometimes we as corporate executives, we do that to the exclusion of other important stakeholders like our employees or like the planet we live on. Right? And so, so I, uh, I, I kinda had a little existential crisis. Uh, this was several years ago. And so I made the decision to leave my corporate life and to go out and to do something else. Um, so I, I've had some, some fits and starts in different things that I've tried. Tony: I tried a little consulting work, but honestly, nobody cared because I really wasn't, I wasn't that differentiated from any other consultant that they could've hired. Uh, and I did a few other things, but one of the things I started doing was I started writing a book and while I was writing the book, I started interviewing people. And as I was interviewing people, uh, I came to believe that the, the, the audio files of the interviews would be highly valuable to people. So that's when I started looking into podcasting and I started the podcast and it's really, the podcast is called social entrepreneur, but it's really about, um, you know, how businesses use the power of business to do social good. So that, that was my, uh, you know, my launch of that. And, you know, today we're heard in over 180 countries. We just passed half a million downloads. Tony: Uh, and so, you know, at some level, uh, we've had great success. Right? Yeah. But, but about a year ago, I was really struggling with like the big questions. Right. You know, well, the simple questions, things like, you know, what's the meaning of life, you know, if you've got the answer to that one is a pretty good answer. Right. So, so, um, you know, I, I really had kind of a crisis of the soul in a way where I was just, I was really struggling with what's kind of the point, right? So I, I, I go to sleep, I wake up in the morning, I eat some food to provide calories so I can go out and go for a run and maybe do some work during the day. And whether I do that work or I don't do that work, you know, not a lot of people notice if I, if I produce an episode today or I don't produce an episode today, you know, people, people aren't gonna lose sleep over that. Tony: So, uh, it's surprising to me to know that I am not the center of their universe. So, uh, so, you know, at some point, um, you start kind of thinking, what is the point of all this? You know, that, that I, you know, I take in calories to burn calories to do stuff, to get to bed so I can go to sleep. So I can wake up tomorrow so I can go do that thing again. Right. And, and so that was a, about a year ago, well, it was actually December, 2018 when I really kinda had, um, a pretty strong awakening to that question. Like, what am I here for? What's, what's the purpose of life? Um, you know, why are we here on earth? And so that was a, that was a beginning of this journey that we're going to talk about a little bit, but I'll, I'll just kind of pause there and figure out if you have any questions about that or comments. Jay: Well, my, my question, that thing we talk about most of the time is, uh, when you make big changes like this, there's gotta be some fear of the unknown. And how did you kind of face that or overcome that fear and, and, and start overcoming these obstacles and, and questions in your mind? Tony: Yeah. Um, you know, I, uh, I had, uh, had a breakfast meeting with a friend of mine. His name's Michael. Very, very good guy. I'm going to owe him for the rest of my life. Um, but, um, you know, he asked me how things were going and I just sort of told him I'm kind of struggling with these existential questions. And, and, and what he recognized in me was he recognized anxiety and he recognized depression. And, and, and so he made a recommendation about a book, uh, and the book is called lost connections. It's by a guy named Johann Hari. And I highly recommend this book. Uh, I'll send you some links to that if you want. But, um, Johann Hari, he did a, uh, uh, multi-year investigation into the causes of, uh, depression and anxiety. And when, when my friend Michael said to me, he said, you know, it seems to me that you're depressed. Tony: And I said, you know, I think I am because I'm, you know, any, so why, why do you think that you are depressed? I said, you know, actually it, you know, I have a pretty good life, you know, I mean, really, I live this life of privilege. Uh, so I really don't, I felt guilty for feeling depressed, right? I, I felt like, uh, I almost don't have the right to be depressed. Uh, you know, I have a good family. I have a good, uh, you know, income I have, you know, lots of everything is working in my life. So I kinda felt guilty for feeling depressed. Right. Um, but, um, this Johann Hari he found, Oh, in what I said to Michael, I said to him what I had been said to me many times, which is, well, my brain is low on serotonin and it's a natural cycle thing for me and I probably need just some more sunshine. Tony: And maybe, um, you know, I'm not going to take Prozac right now, but I might take us some st John's worked and you know, maybe get my brain back in balance. And so he said, well, let me, let me just send you this, uh, interview with this guy, Johann Hari. And it was on a podcast by a guy named ritual. Uh, and Johann talked about his book lost connection and he had found nine different causes of anxiety and depression and only two of them had anything to do with your genes or your brain chemistry. So he had found that things like, uh, being disconnected for meaningful work or being disconnected from other people or being disconnected from, um, you know, from status and respect or the natural world. And he found all these different causes for anxiety and depression. Wow. And, and so it was really interesting because the story I thought I understood about anxiety and depression wasn't true. Tony: Um, and that there were these, these other things that contributed to, um, to these feelings. So what I did was I said, okay, look, a lot of these things are within my control that I have agency. I don't have to sit here and continue to live where I'm at. So I made this decision that I was going to live my best year ever in 2019. I just said, that's it. I, I'm just gonna, uh, live a year of personal best. And, um, so, so I, I, that's what I made up my mind to do. That's what I did in the last year in, I'll just pause here and let you ask any questions or, or have any reflections. So w how, how do you deem what your best year is? What, what makes you think that this is your best year? Did you read my notes? Cause I, I, you know, it's like you cued me up exactly for what I wanted to talk about. Tony: Um, so the, you know, I think that was a big, uh, question for me. So if I live my best year ever, what would that look like? And if I did, how would I know? Right, right. How do you measure your best year? Um, and so, um, I, I have every year what I do is I do this, um, self-assessment and it, it's made up of these, um, and it's based on a book by Michael, uh, Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy. And the name of the book is living forward. And, um, and so, uh, Michael Hyatt has this sort of self assessment that goes with that. And I've been doing it every year, uh, 2017 in January, 2018, 2019. Uh, and I did it again at the end of 2019 to say, you know, how am I doing? And so, um, what they have is they have what they call their three circles of life. Tony: So the circle of beam and within the circle of being, it's like, you know, your internal self. And so, um, it, it's your physicality, it's your emotionality, it's your intellectual. Um, it's your spiritual. So you know, physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, those are all about who you are, how you are in the world. Then there's a life circle of relating. That's the second circle relating. And so relating is about marriage, fuel, parental and societal. Okay. And then there is the circle of doing, so that's vocational, avocational and financial. And so they have these three circles. And altogether within those three circles, they have these 10 domains. And so it's like on a scale of, and this is an odd number on a scale of one to 12, where are you? And the reason they go one to 12 is they have four core tiles, right? You know, a 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%. Tony: And within each of those they have kind of a high, medium and low. And so you can, you can grade yourself. Um, and it's a self assessment, but you can assess yourself against these, um, these 12 areas. Uh, I'm sorry, these 10 domains within three circles on a scale of one to 12. And so that's what I did. I h
