Episode 31: Finding Inspired Purpose With Tony Martignetti

Jul 23

Tony Martignetti

Tony Martignetti is a leadership coach, entrepreneur, idea generator, people connector, and a curious adventurer. He brings together practical experience, and extreme curiosity to elevate leaders and equip them with the tools to navigate through change.

As a former finance and strategy professional working with some of the world’s leading life sciences companies, to now a coach and expert in helping leaders unlock their potential and lead from a place of inspired purpose so that they impact and inspire everyone around them.

Tony is the host of the popular podcast The Virtual Campfire, where he shares lessons learned from leaders in their transformation journey. He is also the author of "Climbing the Right Mountain: Navigating the Journey to An Inspired Life."He has dedicated his life to helping people live a life of inspired purpose.

In the midst of the bustling demands of our world, many often find themselves losing connection to what is meaningful to them, to the essence of who they really are, to that inspired purpose. Tony Martignetti is well-familiar with this dilemma. His time in the corporate world made him think that there is got to be a different way to live and make a difference, leading him to become a leadership coach, an entrepreneur, an idea generator, a people connector, and a curious adventurer. In this episode, he sits down with Sara Murray to speak about the power of connection and reaching out to what is purposeful and fulfilling to ourselves. Tony also brings his experiences, detailing the journey that taught him lessons about fulfillment, self-leadership, and bringing more of ourselves into the workplace. Harness the power of connection in this conversation and learn more about the value of tapping into who you really are and becoming the person your future self wants from you.

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Finding Inspired Purpose With Tony Martignetti

Tony Martignetti is a leadership coach, entrepreneur, idea creator, people connector, and curious adventurer. He brings together practical experience and extreme curiosity to elevate leaders and equip them with the tools to navigate through change. He is a former finance and strategy professional working with some of the world's leading life science companies.

he is now a coach and expert in helping leaders unlock their potential and lead from a place of inspired purpose so that they impact and inspire everyone around them. Tony is the host of the popular podcast, The Virtual Campfire, where he shares lessons learned from leaders in their transformation journey. He has dedicated his life to helping people live a life of inspired purpose, and I am so excited that he's here to show us and leave us with that. Tony, welcome to the show.

I am so thrilled to be here. This is going to be so much fun. I'm looking forward to an engaging conversation with someone who I've enjoyed getting to know over the past few months but it feels longer.

It's interesting because you easily gravitate toward people that have the same message and journey. I am so grateful to you for leading your time with us on the show. There is one way that I like to quickly get to know people. This is my favorite question. I'd like to ask you, who are three fictional characters who make up your personality?

This question was one of those ones that get you. I'm not saying this because this happens to be in the popular zeitgeist, but Indiana Jones has always been someone who I looked up to. If you read my book, you know that because Indiana Jones was someone who I always had an admiration for. His adventuresome and his adventuring where he goes out there and this interest in history that I've always had. It is Indy.

We love him.

Another is Luke Skywalker. I was a child of Star Wars. That's one of the things that I gravitated towards. It is not because he is the main character, but because he was on an adventure and a quest to figure out who he was. That's my journey, too. I always was curious as to where I was going to go next and figure out what's the path and who are the teachers that are going to teach me my way. The last one is going to surprise you or maybe it won’t. It is Forrest Gump.

I love all three.

Forrest Gump because the character he played was one who had a very outsized impact on the people around him because of the nature of who he was. It wasn't because of his intellect or way of discovering certain things. It was more about how he made people feel and how he kept on being more curious about what else is out there.

Forrest was on. He had a lot of pivot points throughout that whole life, too. You would never expect that that's where his life would go. It feels aligned with your journey. That's an excellent pivot point to ask you. You are also an author of a book called Climbing the Right Mountain: Navigating the Journey to An Inspired Life. I love the book. I have a lot of things that I want to pull out and talk to you about the book. Before I do, would you mind sharing a little bit about your journey? You have had what seems like a lot of pivot points unlike Luke Skywalker or Forrest Gump.

Sometimes, there are little pivot points that created massive changes in me. I'll start from an early age. I was an artist as a child. I was someone who was celebrated as being potentially someone who could make an impact as an artist. Eventually, I found myself, as I got into young adulthood, where people in my life would say, “You should think about doing something different. What are you going to do with your life that's going to be able to feed your family? When are you going to be responsible?”

I decided to go Pre-Med. I went in to study medicine. I then quickly switched from medicine to business. That's what set me on my career path of going into business and being a finance and strategy professional in high tech and then biotech, but feeling like there was something missing in that journey. During my time in corporate, I would show up and do all the things that a person in finance would do, but I felt like I was leaving a part of me out. I didn't know it though. Other people did. They saw in me that I was someone who has a different way of seeing the world. I tried to stuff it down because I've been trying to show up as a person who was a numbers person or a person who was more analytical until it started to burn me out.

I went through a period of depression, feeling like I'm not on the right path. I started to think, “There's got to be a different way because I'm not enjoying the ride any longer.” That's what led me to rethink the path I was on. I decided to move out of the corporate world and become a coach. That's what I'm doing but on a very different level. I'm not just coaching. I'm also doing a lot of advisory work and facilitation of programs.

You would be such an impactful coach because you have that experience from the corporate angle. You also know what it's like to go from being an artist to a finance guy in biotech and technology. It's clear to see where the disconnect is once you hear that journey.

I'll share one of the parts that I didn't get deep into. We can be all these things all at once, but we have to make sure that we don't try to put ourselves into a box where we say we have to show up a certain way. We can appreciate all parts of who we are, but we have to be willing to accept that. I wasn't willing to accept that at the time. I was this myopic view of, “I have to be this way because that's how everyone expects me to be.”

We have to make sure that we don't try to put ourselves in a box where we have to show up in a certain way.

I feel that. As you get older and you practice a lot of these techniques, you get better at blending. You have one hand, which is your work life or your work face, and then your other hand, which is your personal face. Sometimes, we've been encouraged in the past to keep things separate. If we can find a way to blend the two and bring our hands together and integrate it, we're more fulfilled in our work. We're able to show up as our authentic selves, and then we're able to enjoy what we're doing for our work so much more.

I want to talk about coaching but some of these examples will naturally come up as we go through your book. Your book does a great job of giving some little sparks of inspiration, which you used on your LinkedIn platform. It does feel like you're leaving little sparks where you can start to think differently.

I realized this as I was preparing for this interview. I was reading the book. It's not a huge book, but it packs a lot of punch. As I was going through it, I was underlining. Every other page has something highlighted in it. I had a little a-ha moment that I'm integrating so much more of the book because I'm reading it knowing I'm going to talk to you.

That could be almost a little hack. Even if you're not going to interview the author on a show, read a book as you're going to ask that person questions. I feel like I had a lot more real, tangible takeaways coming out of this book from that. That was a little epiphany I had. In the book, you talk about fulfillment and give a definition of fulfillment. Do you think that word is thrown around a lot without a lot of clarity behind it? You do a nice job of establishing what fulfillment is. Can you share with us what your definition of fulfillment is?

One of the key parts of the definition of fulfillment that I look at is it's not a destination. It's a mindset. It's a place to come from. When we think about fulfillment, it is this sense of, “How am I connected to who I want to be and not what I want to achieve?” We all attach this sense of connection to fulfillment as an achievement orientation. You change that definition and think from that place of, “How can I come from a place of fulfillment?” What happens is you start to bring together the elements that attract who you want to be or that mindset.

I'm thinking about my own life and my own areas of fulfillment. I like the idea that it is where you're coming from. You always hear the phrase, “I’ll be happy when.” You’re operating from a place of lack.

One of the things that I also tap into, and you might have noticed this, is what I call a blissful balance. It's not about how you're always feeling like, “I have everything I need.” You still want to be striving. You still want to be in growth mode but also know, “I'm satisfied with what I already have. I'm able to come from a place of appreciation for all those things that I've already achieved.” That's where this balance is also an important part of fulfillment to know that I appreciate and I also strive.

I see that being very relatable in a corporate environment. When you’re climbing the ladder, which we always hear about the ladder, you’re trying to get to the next rung on that ladder. It's almost like you're so focused on getting to the next rung on the ladder that your work of what you're doing almost falls by the wayside.

It's part of the journey that you're on. It feels fulfilling because it's all part of who you are being and what you have set on the path of what your intentions are.

I don't want to assume. You'll have to tell us, but I would imagine that the clients that you work with in your coaching business are coming to you because they're not feeling fulfilled.

The words they may use are not necessarily that. Oftentimes, it is like, “I'm working hard but I'm not getting the results that I want. I'm feeling blah about the work I'm doing. I’m maybe bored or maybe I'm not feeling lit up anymore.” All those are symptoms of the same thing, which is to say they need to ignite the spark again and find that connection to what's meaningful to them.

Someone asked me, “What's your work really about?” It's about fulfillment, but at the center of fulfillment is also the sense of connection to what's purposeful for me. It is a connection to myself of who I am and a connection to others. If you think about that sense of connection to the things that are around you and you feel disconnected, that's not going to feel very fulfilling.

That makes so much sense to me. It's so timely that you said that because I'm pretty sure that episode that comes out before your interview is about the power of connection and why it's so important. One of the things that you do a nice job of in the book that I'm going to ask you about next is this idea of the connection to self. You talk about self-leadership. Can you dive into that a little bit more, please?

This is one of those things where with self-leadership, people may gloss over the fact, “I'm not a leader. I don't the title. I don't have these things that make me a leader.” The reality is we are all leaders. It starts with leading ourselves in a way that ensures that we can be there for others, whether that means in our families or our relationships. Self-leadership is the cornerstone of everything.

When I think about self-leadership, there are a few things that come to mind. It's having emotional courage to be able to look at the narratives that you're telling yourself. It is like, “Who am I? What is it that I stand for? What are the thoughts that are creating my world? How can I potentially shift those thoughts in a positive way to make a better narrative?”

I was interacting with somebody. We talked about the idea that we have self-talk. With self-talk, it's almost like having a director of a film or the movie you're making. If the director wants to change the picture, they have to change who that director is, how the director shows up, and what they want that film to look like. Changing the narrative inside changes the outside view of what you create.

One of the quotes that I highlighted in the book that resonated with me was, “Once you have a vision of the person you want to be, you can decide what you need to do to change in order to embrace your future self now.” That's tying into the self-leadership or self-direction.

If you don't have that connection to the person you want to be, then it's almost like you're driving blind. You are expecting that eventually, you're going to get to this place that's going to make you feel something but you don't necessarily know what that is. That's where we fill that place with what externally feeds us and what other people think that might look like. We have to define that on our own terms. That's the crux of the whole entire book that I want people to focus on. It is ensuring that our sense of what we want is defined based on what we truly decide to want, not what other people want for us.

If you don't have that connection to the person you want to be, then it's almost like driving blind and expecting eventually you're eventually going to get to a place that will make you feel something.

That is like when you're an artist and you're pushed into a finance career.

I appreciate all the things that have happened in my journey. They were meant for me. At the same time, we want to make sure people navigate the journey for them.

Someone comes to you as a client and they say, “I'm feeling blah. I'm bored. I don't feel like I'm getting the results I want.” Is the first step you focus on self-leadership and getting clear on what they want?

It is, to an extent. They may not necessarily need and be ready to jump in and say, “Let's look inside and start digging in.” It starts with taking an inventory and starting to understand themselves better. I like to think of it as time traveling. We look back and look at what has led you to this point. How do we understand who you are through the lens of the past? What were the decisions you made? What got you into this place you're in, good or bad? Maybe there were decisions that you made to get into this field that were all with great intentions because you enjoyed certain aspects of it. Maybe the blah is because you lost certain parts of it. Maybe it's the company you're in. Who knows?

We then go into the future. Time traveling requires some going in the past, and then we drive into the future. We start thinking, “What would I like to see the future look like?” When we start to paint that picture and create that vision, we can start to say, “I feel something when I look at this, when I create that sense of who I want to be.” We then come into the present and think, “What can I do to bridge the gap or create that sense of where I am now to where I'd like to be?”

I love the time-traveling example because it's so literal.

When you think about it, where you are now versus where you would like to be, it starts by embodying the things that your future self wants from you. I often liken it to the fact that if your future self is a marathon runner, then you can start to think about what a marathon runner thinks like. What do they act like? What do they do? Those things can start to become part of your life by you deciding to be a marathon runner. You’re not going to eat junk food all day. You’re not going to sit on the couch all day. That doesn't mean you can't sit on the couch or eat junk food. It means that you need to start taking some intentional actions that align with who you're being.

When I was reading the book and the way that I look at it, I like the time traveler example a little bit better. This will relate to an example. I'm calling future state Sara 2.0. That's the future version of Sara. I have a lot of big projects going on, which is awesome. I'm laser-focused on making sure that I'm delivering for my clients and I'm executing these deals. Part of what helps me when I'm in this zone of focus is sleeping well, exercising, and eating right. That's what I need to do to show up fully energized.

One of the things that happened is I had a great day. It was a long day. I love drinking, but wine disrupts my sleep. You wake up at 3:00 AM because all the sugar's burned off and you're awake for four hours. I feel like I know when I'm in this zone of focus, I try to not drink during the workday because I want to wake up refreshed.

It was Wednesday night. I opened the fridge and I stood at the fridge for a while. I was like, “There's a Sauvignon Blanc right here or fruit.” I made a smoothie instead because Sara 2.0 would make a smoothie and honor her word to herself instead of drinking that glass of wine. It took a lot of willpower, but it was a helpful example to be like, “What does future Sara need that she can do right now?”

I love that example. Also, know that you can have that glass of wine when you come on weekends. You make the space for the things that you want as well.

We're doing this show on a Friday, so there might be two glasses of wine in the immediate future Sara. How can we relate this to work? In a business, and this is the same whether you're self-employed or an employee, what can you do or how can you operate what you want the future version of yourself to look like?

Here's an example that is timely. I had this conversation earlier with a client of mine. We were talking about creating more space for being able to maybe work from home once a week. How good does it feel when you can spend half your day doing something that's not work-related? Maybe it is doing some projects that you needed to do, some personal projects, or catching up on some stuff at home. That can be scary to people because they think, “I got so much to do. There's no way that's going to happen.”

If you say, “My future self is only working four and a half days.” I'm saying that because maybe it's four days, but four and a half days is a good start. That's every week. You’re like, “Four and a half days is how I work. How do I need to act and be right now in order to make that happen?” I need to plan my time. When I'm at work, I'm working and getting stuff done. I'm also thinking about how I could get rid of the things that are not serving me. If I want to take that half day for myself, I need to cut some of the things out that are not a fit. It is getting a little more diligent and thinking, “I need to make space for the things that are important to me.” If that half day is important to me or my future self, that's part of my plan.

Examples I could think of for that would be if somebody calls you and they are calling to vent. A colleague calls you because they need to stall. It's like, “I'm here for you, but can we talk about this another time or talk about it on the weekend?” There are a lot of areas where we get dragged down unintentionally and well-meaningfully.

It is that meeting that you often go to because you've been told you should go, but then, you realize you go there and it doesn't serve you. You don't find yourself adding value. You have a meeting every week. That weekly meeting is two hours, but in reality, it could probably be slimmed down to an hour. Why not cut that down? Those are the things that make a difference. Time is valuable. I'm using that example because it's one that a lot of people can relate to. I was working with somebody in the hospital system where time is really precious for them.

That's a great example. Do you know the phrase that a rising tide lifts all boats? We can all get from this space where that's how we're operating in our work lives. It's going to make that fulfillment and that happiness comes a lot more naturally.

We can support each other in our endeavors, which is an important part of this. If you don't mind, I'll share something that has been on my mind. It is in this sense that we don't know enough about each other in the workplace. I did a TED Talk around connection, which is all about bringing more of ourselves into the workplace and getting to know each other on a deeper level. By doing so, we get to understand what challenges people are facing that we're not aware of.

When we do that, we can then support people in a different way. It is in a way that's meaningful, not like, “Let's work together on that project.” Instead, it might be like, “I know you need to leave at 5:00 because you're taking care of someone sick at home. Why don't I cover you after 5:00? or I'll cover you to get that done, and then you can take care of me next week as I have to take care of my kids?”

I operate from that standpoint, too. I'm probably more open than the average person. A big part of why I feel like I'm open is because I want to be someone that can hold space for others. I also want to make sure that they feel like they have a safe space from me and I'll keep their stuff private. That's outside of the normal corporate world. It is keeping work Sara over here and personal Sara over here. The two can’t blend. What would you say when you encounter resistance to that?

I have heard this from countless people that tell me, “I feel like maybe I'm too much. I give too much of my personal side in the workplace and it's not reciprocated. The environment doesn't support that.” There's a sense of being the force of change in that organization by opening the aperture and asking people, “What are some things about you that I don't know that you're willing to share?” Get curious.

One of the things that I've gotten into is sharing this idea of what is called CORE. It's to get Curious, the C word, about what you might be hiding or holding back. What makes you who you are? Ask other people the same question. What are the things that make you who you are? What are the hobbies or interests that you have that make you unique?

The O is about Opening up. Open yourself to the fear of sharing those things. Sometimes, people are fearful of, “If I share that I play the harmonica, people are going to laugh at me or they are going to think I'm weird.” In reality, that might be something that they'd be like, “Tell me more. I want to hear about this. You should play that during hold space.” An opening is a big part of it, especially for introverts. Even if you may be open, it is about giving people comfort like, “This is okay. You can share.”

Release is all about releasing any fears you may have of sharing what you have to share and also Relaxing into the space of doing this. It allows people to feel at ease. The E is Expand. Expand the circle. Once you start to get people opening up, it allows other people to see that this is a place where we all are sharing with each other and celebrating each other, both differences and similarities. It's great when you find common interests. It is also being able to see, “This person's a runner. Next week, they're climbing a mountain. This one's doing that.” You can go out there and be like, “How did that go? How can we help you? How can we support you?” That's a beautiful thing.

Once you start to get people to open up, it allows others to see that this is a place where we all are sharing with each other and celebrating each other.

CORE is Curious, Opening up, Release and Relaxing, and Expanding the circle. I'm so happy you shared that because I feel like that's been a big part of my personal success in building relationships with others. It is the ability to express interest in others but also share personal items as well. One area that might help people that helped me is I've always sold pretty technical products and complex products. It was easy to make mistakes. I would make mistakes all the time. I still make mistakes every day. If you're not making mistakes, you are not growing.

It's a position of strength to share the mistake. It’s like, “Tony, I'm sharing this with you because I don't want you to have to go through the same thing I went through.” If you're a little hesitant to be so vulnerable about your personal life, that might be a nice easy way to start the CORE process. I feel the same way. People have so much fear that they're going to be rejected. Almost always, nobody ever blinks an eye. They’re like, “You play the harmonica? That's so cool. I'm learning how to play the bass. Let's jam on our next Teams call.”

Before you know it, you have a company band.

You’ll have a talent show. People are more excited and happy at work. I'm a believer in that. I like that. When was your talk?

It was the 4th of July break. It was on a Saturday, the 1st of July 2023.

Congratulations. That's a huge accomplishment.

I appreciate it. It was a great experience. It was great to be part of some other amazing speakers, too. I was thrilled to be part of that experience.

You coached employees who work for large corporations. That's a big part of your business, correct?

It's a bit of both. I've done a fair amount of coaching with entrepreneurs but also with people who are inside organizations. I came from a biotech background, so that's been my starting point when I got going. It is mostly inside companies.

I love that your message is about building a connection with self, connection with purpose, and connection with others. In your book, you have eight guideposts in Climbing the Right Mountain. I love the theme, too. You can get the Indiana Jones theme. You guys are going to have to read Tony's book because it goes through the hero's journey and how you are going to use these guideposts and building blocks to get to that place of inspired purpose.

You have eight of them. We're not going to get into all of them. I liked Connect with the Leader Within, which I feel like we've spoken about quite a bit so far in the interview. You have a section called Calibrate Your Being. You talk about the HOS, which I'm going to let you explain. What does HOS mean?

I'll give you the inside secret on this, too, because it's not explained in the book. This came to me when I was on a trip to Peru. I was climbing Machu Picchu. I had a lot of time to think and explore. I realized that I was being more connected with who I was at this time instead of caught up in the rat race of my day-to-day. I realized that sometimes, we need to get out of our element and reset our human operating system to do an upgrade to our operating system. We all have this programming that we get. After a while, it starts to not work as well. We need to have an upgrade.

What came to me is this sense of we have our operating code. The Be CODE is something that is connected with this. CODE is an acronym. C stands for Centered. O stands for Open. D is Detach. E is Elevated. Let me share the inner story of all this. Being Centered or grounded means that you are connected to your happy place when the challenges of life and the emotional turmoil of the world pushes you off balance. That happens quite frequently. We need to make sure we have that centered element to make sure we're on balance.

Being centered or grounded means that you are connected to your happy place when the challenges of life and the emotional turmoil of the world pushes you off balance.

Being Open means that you are ready to receive new ideas. You're tolerant of others' points of view. You're curious and open to exploration. Detach is interesting because people think, “Being detached is a bad thing. Why would you want to be that?” In this instance, it's about making sure that you're detached from the outcomes. We have to set a vision and a goal. It is about being detached from what happens.

What I've come to realize, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate to this, is that if you get so tied up to things being perfectly aligned to what you envision it is going to be and then it doesn't turn out that way, you get frustrated. The best thing you can do is to play with what shows up. You might even be surprised at what you thought would happen is not exactly what shows up but something even better might happen.

The last one is Elevated. Being elevated means you realize that everything in life is connected. You operate from a place of it's not about winning or losing. It's about how we win together. It is the sense of how we ensure that if we're working with other people, we find a win-win in this situation. I know it seems like a lot to take in, but this CODE is about resetting your mindset to be more you.

The human operating system is a great guidepost for how we're operating in our inner being. I love the Be CODE. Be Centered, Open, Detached, and Elevated. When you were speaking, I was thinking about being centered. I used to live at the beach. If I had a really overwhelming day call, the second I could get a break, if I could run out and have a minute and look at the ocean, it calmed everything down. It ended up being my little hacks. If I had ten minutes, I'm going to run out, get my feet in the sand, and do that little grounding. I have other ways to do it. I'll do a walk around the block. I'll go sit in the yard. I'll go pet the cat. There are other ways to be centered, but that's a good one.

In my business, I've been very interested in the Be Detached process because I have a vision for where I want to go. I expand the vision. I know you say that in your book. The vision's there. I have an idea of how I could get there. I've been taking action toward that idea. What I've started to realize is that because I've been open to different opportunities and I'm detached from how I get there, I've been having these different opportunities dropped into my lap that I would've never expected that would've never happened if I didn't take action.

It's still where the vision was, but to your point of it being better, this is a faster way I could execute it and make way more money than going through the route I was originally planning on taking. It is cool. When you release yourself from the how, you have your guideposts where you're guessing you're heading. It's been cool.

I want to reflect on that because there's a sense of we make it harder than it needs to be because we've put ourselves so structured into this path of like, “I put this vision in place. That means I've got to follow all the different steps one by one.” Don't make it that hard. Once you start to create that vision and be the person that vision is attached to, then all the things start to fall into place. That's how it all comes into play.

I want to bring it back to a sales example, too, because I'm a little sales champion. I like to have a sales lens on some of our conversations because it does spark so many different examples. When I think about being detached from the outcome and being open, one of my personal strengths in sales, in my opinion, has been the ability to ask questions, listen, and then be creative on how I go to market.

I've been able to find a lot of untapped sales channels that I would've never found if I went into a meeting assuming the other person wants this or I need to take them there. If you go in open and curious and ask questions, you might find 6 other revenue streams or 6 other sales channels you didn't know existed. If you go in with the assumption and the goal and what you want to get out of it but you're not open, curious, and interested in connection, you leave so much money on the table. I'm happy that we can apply this Be CODE to our business, too, because it is an expander.

It's brilliant. Everything about the way that you show up in terms of selling and the way you connect is how you're very successful. That's how I've found success myself. It's about going into conversations without a feeling that you need to sell. It's about, “How can I make a connection with this person?” That goes well beyond, “How can I sell as many widgets as possible?” It's, “How can I get to know this person on a level that is beyond that?” If we connect well, there's potentially going to be some value created, whatever that might look like.

It may not be now. It might be 3 years or 5 years from now. I can't believe the people that are showing up to support my business or that I'm working with again after ten years. You never know where that's going to lead. The more genuine connections you can have with others, the rest of it comes easy.

I couldn't agree more. I talk about inspiration through honest conversation. The tagline of my business is Inspiration Through Honest Conversation. That also lends itself to the world of how you sell. Have honest conversations with people. Don't try to fleece them in some way. You inspire others to want to do more with you by being connected with them and having conversations that are meaningful to them.

You inspire others to want to do more with you by being connected with them and having conversations that are meaningful to them.

That's the definition of success. It makes it a lot more fun. You have a quote you had said earlier. It said something about it being a win-win. You had a quote in your book that says, “Amateurs compete, professionals create.”

I don't even know where that came from. I don't think I made it up. Somewhere along my journey, I've come across that quote. It has been a game-changer for me. The world can be very competitive, but if you come from this place of saying, “If I want to expand the pie and create something more expansive in general, then the best thing I can do is to collaborate with others who see the world as something that is connected and more powerful when we work together.”

That's a great tieback to leadership, too, because you have leaders that will compete whether you're a manager of people or not. If you're a leader that's creating space for others to be successful, expanding their message, and connecting authentically, that leadership style is going to be much more impactful than the competitors or people who compete.

It is opening the door, not closing the door.

You are someone who opens doors for everyone. I am so happy that you and I were able to meet each other. Truly, your book is so personally impactful to me. I would encourage everyone to buy it. Before I ask you how people can work together, is there anything else you would like to leave the audience with?

You talked briefly about expanding your vision and narrowing your focus. I want to talk about that for a minute because oftentimes, I run into people who feel like, “I don't know what my next steps are. I don't know what's possible.” This exercise is something that people come to me a lot. They ask me, “How do I take moves to the next step?”

Expanding your vision and narrowing your focus is a mindset change for you to see what's possible. That's what I want to share. If you feel stuck, take a step back, look around, and say, “What else is possible at this moment?” Once you see something that's possible, and maybe you'll have multiple options ahead of you, choose one lane. See what you can do to advance that one lane forward. That's where the narrowing comes in because you can't do it.

I like the time traveler example that you shared with us, too. It's almost like time-traveling to your future self and seeing what that looks like. That can help in expanding your vision.

I wanted to share that because it's a very great thing for people to think about when they can be in this place of like, “What next?”

That doesn't necessarily have to be work-related either if they're expanding their vision and their focus. The focus could be running a marathon or carving out time in your day to go do a run. Work is always going to be there, so find ways to set boundaries and work towards your goals. Don't have guilt doing it. There is one other thing I want to piece on. In your book, you did have a piece that says you asked people what they are doing for themselves. Everyone seemed confused about that.

We need to be able to take care of ourselves. We need to make sure were are in this place where we don't see self-care as selfish. It's not selfish. If we're not taking care of ourselves first, then we're not going to be able to take care of people in a more helpful way. Ultimately, that's where I'm always getting people thinking differently about their perspectives on self-care. Self-care is a part of self-leadership.

Self-care is a part of self-leadership.

I love it. I got so much out of this conversation. You are someone who inspires me. You're very active on LinkedIn. I will tell everyone to follow Tony on LinkedIn for some sparks of inspiration. If people want to work with you, how else can they find you?

First of all, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation as always. I enjoy our conversations. The best place for people to reach out to me and find out more about me is on my website, InspiredPurposeCoach.com. If you go there, you can take my assessment. I have an assessment tool. You can find out where you are on your leadership journey and get some insights as to where to go next. Besides that, LinkedIn is the place to find me.

LinkedIn, the book, the TED Talk, and the podcast, The Virtual Campfire. We didn’t even get into the podcast. You’re putting so much goodness out into the world. We need more people like you to expand all of the leaders within us. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your insights with us.

Thank you very much.