278 – Learn to collaborate and “Raise a Dream”: Tom interviews Charmaine Hammond

Episode 278 – Charmaine Hammond
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, it's Tom here with episode two hundred and seventy eight of Screw the Commute podcast. Charmaine Hammond is here with us. And this lady is a doer. She's here as part of Raise A Dream Week and raise a dream week is something she developed along with a partner of her's who's gonna be on Friday. And we need dreams more than ever with this pandemic going along. And you're sitting at home and wonder what the future holds. Well, perfect time to raise a dream, I think. That's why I want to have her on and have Rebecca on also. So. I'll introduce her to you in a minute. I hope you didn't miss episode 277. That was one of my Monday training sessions where on Mondays I do a more in-depth session on something that's either made me or saved me a ton of money. And this Monday was business communications. And that's not what you say to your prospects and customers employees, but the methods that we use, including my favorite virtual walkie talkie. So hope you didn't miss that episode if you did. That was episode 277. Now, would you like to hear your own voice here on screw the commute? Well, if the show's helped you out at all in your business or giving you ideas to help you start a business, we want to hear about it. Visit Screwthecommute.com and look for a little blue bar on the side that says send a voicemail. Well, you can click on it, talk into your phone or computer and tell me how the show's helped you and make sure you put your Web site on there so you'll get a nice big shout out on a future episode of Screw the Commute. Now, let's see here. You know, work from home searches on Google are going crazy. I've been doing it my entire career, 43 years and I've been preaching it to you all. Since 1996 when I started teaching Internet marketing stuff. So so it's nothing new to me. But hopefully you can see how good it would be if you could be earning a legitimate living from home. Also, it's a great legacy thing to turn on to your the young people in your life, your nephews, nieces, grandchildren, your own kids and even yourself to learn these skills and not be in debt to major universities the rest of your life. So check it out at IMTCVA.org. That's my school. And feel free to call me. There's no pressure here. And I'll be glad to discuss with you your future or your children's future in online business, which I'll tell you what, if you talk about a career that's in demand. Every single business on earth needs what we teach. So there's no shortage of jobs or, you know, getting an MBA and then competing for jobs at Starbucks.

[00:03:21] All right. So let's see here. Let's bring on the main event. Charmaine Hammond brings together great ideas and organizations who make a difference. And she partners with people that make a big impact. And that's what she's known and respected for. Guess what? She was a former correctional officer. Man, I wouldn't want to mess with this lady because she's a doer. She beat my head in with a stick. She worked in jails. And she's a dispute resolution expert. I could just see her saying, listen, you put that shiv down right now and she travels the world teaching the principles of collaboration, conflict resolution and resilience. And she is the co inventor of Raise A Dream. Charmaine, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:04:16] I am!

[00:04:19] How you been.

[00:04:20] I am doing great. And episode two hundred seventy eight. Tom, you are knocking it out of the park. That's awesome.

[00:04:29] What episode were you before? I don't remember.

[00:04:32] I can't remember. I think it was double digit.

[00:04:35] Oh, yeah. Because I wanted to have important people on right in the beginning, that's for sure. So so this is Raise a dream week. And I was sitting here thinking about all the things going on in the world and who I should have on. And I couldn't think of anybody better than you because you really do things. You take the bull by the horns and you kind of invented this concept. I don't know if it was along with Rebecca, who will have on Friday. But tell us how the genesis of Raise a dream.

[00:05:05] You know, Rebecca and I did not. Know each other.

[00:05:08] And we were introduced by mutual colleague who who knew both of us quite well, and he said, you know, you're both working in similar spaces in terms of the work you do as entrepreneurs. You are both very much into collaboration. I think you just need to know each other. And we met at a live retreat type setting. And honestly, I think we we both sort of started focusing on this possibility of how we could work together and everything became secondary. And we just found that there were so many similarities and we were really passionate about helping people raise their dreams, launch their projects and get those great ideas off the ground. And we created Raise a Dream. And shortly thereafter we incorporated. And and so what was really cool, Tom, is we were building a relationship at the same time we were building the company.

[00:06:02] Wow. So tell us what the purpose of Raise a dream is.

[00:06:07] Raise a dream helps entrepreneurs. So we work with a lot of speakers and coaches. It helps entrepreneurs, service clubs and non-profits learn how to work in collaboration better because we know that when big dreams need to get raised projects need to be launched, they're going to be most successful when they are done in collaboration with other partners. But the other piece that we work on to raise a dream is also helping entrepreneurs, service clubs and non-profits understand some of the results that can happen through collaboration. And one of those is sponsorship getting sponsorship dollars or in-kind.

[00:06:47] Yes. So that's a that's a big thing nowadays because many corporations, you know, have lost some of their traditional methods to spend money. So I think for the past 10 or even more years, more money has been poured into sponsorship every year.

[00:07:07] Yeah, we certainly see the increase in what I love about the time that we live and work in right now.

[00:07:12] Tom, is that companies are getting really creative as well. No longer is a company willing to just cut a check and say, there you go. You know, have a great time with your project. They really want to feel invested and be part of the impact you're creating. So if you're an entrepreneur, you know, if you're a nonprofit and you want to make impact, this is a great time to be finding those companies that you share values with where there is alignment and figuring out how you can both help each other. And what we've seen over and over again with our own projects and our clients is when you take that kind of approach, you can accomplish so much more with less stress, with less effort, and make a bigger difference in the world.

[00:07:56] Yeah, but I think you cheat when you do it because you got the cutest dog on earth, Toby. And so people are like putting the dog while they sign the check and maybe even notice how much money they gave you.

[00:08:10] Yeah. So true, when we did our million bucks to kind of stir Toby, the dog was really the the big feature of that whole tour.

[00:08:19] And what was in Congress, it was called the Million Acts of Kindness Tour. And based on Toby, our dog, who I had written several books about, you know, the funny part of this, Tom, is that dog, really after we were done the tour, he wanted nothing to do with I don't want to be I don't want to be part of graphing books anymore autograph. So I had to actually really learn how to do this for my other projects that didn't involve a dog. You know, here is the cool learning, Tom. Everybody has a Toby. I mean, it doesn't mean that everyone has a dog, but everyone has something that they're passionate about or a dream that needs to get raised. And at that time, it was all about this project with Toby. And so when you can find what that dream is, it's so much easier to find people to partner with.

[00:09:09] Well, I've got a little bit worried about Toby because I've never seen a video of Toby without, you know, both dogs. You know, cheese sticks. He's like, got a tree in his mouth, everything.

[00:09:21] This is tearing down the forest. I mean, what's up with that dog?

[00:09:25] I know. Well, you know what? Tom even was just practicing social distancing.

[00:09:30] Long before I needed to do it, because he walks through the park with a stick and his mouth is in the middle of a six foot long.

[00:09:36] Exactly.

[00:09:38] So he was just teaching us what we needed to know. We just didn't know. We needed to know.

[00:09:42] Yeah. I mean, people get knocked out of the way flipping up upside down. He's trying to go by with this giant pole in his mouth is there's a telephone pole.

[00:09:54] You've got the complete books about him, don't you?

[00:09:57] I do. I've written three books. Two of them are children's books, and one of them is an adult book. Really?

[00:10:03] It a memoir that I wrote about how this dog really changed my life and taught me to be a better person.

[00:10:12] And that was all about 20, our first Toby. And. And then many years later, another Toby found his way into our life. And I wrote a couple of children's books. What were the titles? So we have on Toby's terms and then the two children's books are Toby the Pet Therapy Dog and his hospital friends. And then Toby, the pet therapy dog, says, be a buddy, not a bully.

[00:10:36] Beautiful.

[00:10:39] So so how do how do people support or participate or get more involved in the race, the dream? I call the movement more than just the program, right?

[00:10:51] Yeah. I love that. You call it that, too.

[00:10:54] It's the money. That's awesome. I love the fact you know it. I love it.

[00:11:03] You frame that as a movement.

[00:11:05] Because when Rebecca and I started Raise a Dream, one of the conversations we had that got us really, really excited about working together was the fact that we know when entrepreneurs raise their dreams, when nonprofits get these projects launched that are important to them. We know that the world becomes a better place. And so that's what really inspired us. And so we work with people in different ways. We have mentoring programs. We've really worked hard at building a community where our raise a dream. We call them dream raisers when these people who are raising dreams come in and they support one another. And that's what I think is really. Our full time is when you bring people together who are all interested in making a difference in the world, and they're doing that very differently with different projects. But this community allows them to connect with each other.

[00:12:00] Did you have to cancel any events because of the pandemic? We're in the middle.

[00:12:05] You know, interesting. My my other business, the corporate speaking that I do a lot of in nearly all of my speaking engagements were canceled. A couple of them went to virtual, but they were just postpone to later times in the writer run with raise a dream. The great part about that business model, because we learned from the best Tom Antion, we learned the importance of creating things that are virtual.

[00:12:33] So the very first program that Rebecca and I created was an online course. And so we started out that way and then we were offering some live events and then we have a number of digital products and we continued to build those now and we see how important they are now because people are in a place where I don't think live events are going to be coming back anytime soon.

[00:12:59] All right, so tell us a little bit about, you know, because this is a more entrepreneurial podcast. A little bit about the deal you have with Rebecca, could you set it up formally as a formal partnership agreement? How how is it set up between you two?

[00:13:17] Yeah. We went with so we incorporated our company. The dream is is incorporated.

[00:13:22] Both of us have you know, we're both equal partners, know we contribute to the vision of the organization. Both of us bring very different skill sets like, you know, both of us are, I would say, big thinkers and we're doers. Where movers? You know, we love to move projects forward. But Rebecca brings a whole set of skills to this company that I don't have. And she's. I love. I think the most important quality of Rebecca that just helps me out so much is she's a she. She completes things.

[00:13:58] So she's a finisher, a starter starter.

[00:14:02] And I can move on to the next exciting thing. And Rebecca, is it just exquisite at big picture thinking and then drilling down to how to move things forward? And, you know, one of the big lessons for me, because all my businesses have always been myself and my husband as partners, but never bringing in somebody else. And so this was just so powerful to see in action, probably that the first year after we opened the company that when we were able to complete things in a way better way because of the skills that Rebecca brought to the table. And we're often tempted to start businesses and projects as entrepreneurs with people that are just like us. And sometimes if we all in the project have the same skillset, we may not be as successful. So, Rebecca, they're both high energy. We love creating things. And Rebecca definitely takes the prize at getting stuff done and moving it forward and completing.

[00:15:06] Yeah, was going to say you're awful lucky because more of these type of deals fail than succeed. Really, because people get all excited, starry eyed, jump into things without proper documentation of what happens if this happens, what happens if somebody gets sick or dies or can't contribute. So. So there's a lot of you know, it's very easy to get into a partnership. Getting out can be really, really bad.

[00:15:35] Well, there was another reason why we started Raise a Dream is that both Rebecca and I were seeing so many entrepreneurs that had joint joint in a collaboration or started a business with a friend.

[00:15:49] And not only were businesses ruined, but friendship ended. And and as a former mediator, I was a mediator for many, many years. And I mediated some of those cases where people had come together with great intentions were friends, lifelong friends. And then something happened in the partnership. The relationship ended. The business ended. Dreams didn't get launched. So that was another part of the inspiration for Rebecca and I to come together was that we wanted to help people not make those mistakes. So we teach up with our clients, you know, to to when you're working in collaboration, put it in writing and get an agreement and preserve the relationship. And you know that that's how Rebecca and I run our business. You know, the relationship is key.

[00:16:36] Yeah. And with conflict resolution, I want you to tell me if you've ever actually said these words.

[00:16:43] All right. Ready? Because in the prisons. Yeah.

[00:16:47] If you don't put that shiv down, I'm going to put it where the sun don't shine.

[00:16:53] Ok, so there is a difference between thinking something and say, oh, yeah.

[00:17:00] So no, I have not said that, but I have had to deal with a number of situations that were sort of like hostage situations where what where weapons are involved. And yeah, that was that was I was in the correctional system for about 10 years, both in adult facilities and then later running young offender facilities. In fact, my first leadership job was running to a young offender treatment custody facility. And boy, I learned a lot. And I think that's honestly, Tom, that's where my interesting collaboration came from, because I discovered as a correctional officer one of a handful of females in the first jail that I worked at, that if you want to be safe and if you want your shift to be easier.

[00:17:46] Wow. When you collaborate and partner with the people that you work with, things go way better.

[00:17:52] And I noticed that in the correctional system, it was quite a competitive environment for employees. And so I came in with a collaborative approach, which often wasn't well-received. But I do know it kept me safe and certainly allowed us to help people better.

[00:18:11] Well, you know, I got a protection dog company on the side. Yes. Oh, you have to do is take Toby in there with one of those logs in his mouth and then run through the where they're fighting.

[00:18:22] And prisoners have been flaring all over the place and then get knocked out.

[00:18:29] Well, you know what's really cool? We didn't have any animal assisted therapy dogs in the jail I worked with.

[00:18:35] But I've really over the last number of years, I've felt across these organizations where they do have therapy dogs that go into prisons. And and there was one program that I was looking at where the inmates actually are part of the training. Right. Therapy dogs. And they were talking about how this impacted their lives and then it lowered, you know, the return to jail rate and all of that. So I think, you know, there's so much to learn from animals.

[00:19:05] I don't have to convince you that you and I are both dog lovers.

[00:19:09] But, yeah. So and there was consequences if you messed up. You didn't get your dog was taken away. So nobody wanted to mess up and have that happen. I mean, I can imagine how lonely it is. And in jail anyway, those dogs are calming. And I think people's blood pressure goes down and all kinds of positive things coming coming from dogs. And they're good at digging. So when they want to escape, the dogs can dig the hole.

[00:19:44] Oh, how did you get into that? How did you end up? Oh, my gosh. And in the jail system.

[00:19:51] You know what? You know what I think it was? I had an amazing grade 9 and grade 11 teacher, Miss Erst decades.

[00:19:57] So she decided to send you to jail. That's amazing.

[00:20:01] You know what?

[00:20:02] You know, I was painfully shy Tom here as a child and really awkward in Grade 9. And Missouri's decayed US was an exceptional teacher and she was teaching us English. And we had to learn how to debate issues in a way that was respectful and engaged people. So I started learning about communication skills from her in this English class. And then one of the projects had to do with our future. You know, what do we want to be when we grow up, essentially? And I think at that time I wanted something I knew I wanted a career where I could help people and I wasn't sure if that was as a counsellor or a police officer. But I knew I didn't want to carry a gun. I'd probably, like, injure myself with something. So I thought maybe I want to be a correctional officer. And it was being in her class and building confidence and moving away from being so shy and awkward that by the time I got to grade twelve, I knew it's exactly what I wanted to do. I think my parents probably got gray hair when I told them that.

[00:21:10] But how many kids are thinking? What do you want to be when you grow up? Oh, I think I want to. I want to hang around a bunch of dregs of society and risk my life. That maybe that. What can I do?

[00:21:21] Well, you know, I remember the first couple of weeks working in the correctional system, and it was so powerfully Life-Changing for me, because I think as humans, we make all kinds of assumptions. And I'll tell you, in the first couple of weeks in the jail that I was working at, I met some of the most incredibly talented people. So, yes, they were in jail and some of them were profound poets and writers and artists and, you know. And so I started to learn about these skill sets that these and made her inmates had and, you know, got really intrigued with maybe this is not the right setting for me to work in. Because in the jail setting that I was at the time, I couldn't really help. You know, it was really a jail. It wasn't a counseling program. And that's what inspired me to move out of the jail setting into working with young offenders when, you know, maybe I can have more of an impact and and teach some life skills that would maybe shape somebody's future. And and I love the work, you know, while I was involved in it really did.

[00:22:28] That's beautiful. We got to take a brief sponser break. And when we come back, we're going to get Charmaine to tell us her vision for Raise a Dream, what what the future holds, and a little bit about her daily schedule and how she runs her business. So so folks back. Oh, jeez, about 20 years ago, I kind of turned the Internet marketing world on its head. And the guys at my level were charging 50 or 100 thousand bucks upfront to teach Internet marketing to people. And I'm thinking, oh, man, it's. And I know these guys, they would think got the money. They wouldn't teach anyway. So I thought, you know, that's kind of a rip off and it's too much money for small businesses. I said I'm going to just charge a tiny percentage of that as an entry fee and then I'm going to charge a percentage of profits that's capped. So you're not stuck with me forever. And for me to get my big money, you got to make way big money, way bigger money. And so currently it's like fifty thousand. So once I get my fifty thousand, you have to have made two hundred thousand. And so people love this. And seventeen hundred students later, it's still going strong. And it's you know, it's a very powerful program. You know, I'm not going to disappear on cuts because I won't get my fifty thousand. Charmaine, I'll tell you all about it. See those people in the program. So. And also I wanted it to be unique. So we have this retreat center where I'm recording this right now. You can't come here now because of the pandemic. But people come in for retreats from all over the world that actually live in the house. So it's very unique. We have a video studio here. All kinds of unique features. Plus, you get one on one attention from me and my entire staff. I mean, nobody at my level even talk to you, let alone. Hello to you. For the time that you're in the program. So. So anyway, it's very powerful. You can check it out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com. When you check out the Charmaine stuff later, if you want to contact her and ask her what she thinks and what she's heard about the program, I'm sure you'll be glad to tell you so. So let's get back to the main event. Charmaine Hammond is here. She is the. Co-founder of Raise a Dream. And so what's the future of Raise a Dream Charmaine?

[00:24:57] Well, a couple of things. Number one is we're really seen through this Cauvin situation how critically important is community is for entrepreneurs.

[00:25:08] And I knew that and I but we haven't really advanced the work on our membership program. So that's one of the big projects we'll be working on is building a more formal community, a membership site and a course.

[00:25:22] You and I I've talked about that, Tom, and and then the other pieces. One of the things I hear from clients all the time is they'll say things like, Charmaine, Rebecca, can you say that again? And what we discovered is because Rebecca and I work in this area all the time, there's there's ways of phrasing things that just sort of spills out of our mouth. We're just really used to doing this. But if you're new to it, you might not have the language. So we're actually putting some of our I'm going to call them scripts together how we would talk to a collaboration partner, how would we would talk to a sponsor. So people have the length which to use in these conversations. A lot of people have just never had these kind of dialogues. And it brings up extreme anxiety for them. And then they actually don't get on the conversation or call with with a potential sponsor or simply want to try and provide the tools, whether that scripts the membership community so that we can basically any time an entrepreneur gets moving along and then they stop because it's lack of information or lack of confidence. We have a solution for them so that it doesn't slow them down.

[00:26:35] Wow. Very, very powerful. So so what's a typical day look like for you, a typical day?

[00:26:42] Well, it starts with coffee and it's usually it's usually who makes the coffee that day, Christopher or myself? I think he's winning right now.

[00:26:50] He's making more coffee than I am. And then we love having a dog because it forces us to get outside and walk and know. Starts with a morning walk with Toby and certainly check, you know, checking. I usually check in with some social media platforms that I'm on before I dive into e mails, because I find that, you know, the only things I look at on social media are things that feel good. And I check in on what some of our clients are doing and what things people are celebrating in their world. And that just starts my day of feeling positive and hopeful. And I found that during this time of socially distancing, that has just really, really helped. And then I dive into the wonderful world of email and then quickly need an escape from that. And so I break my day up. I felt one of the things I found, Tom, and you probably know this about me from working with me over the years. But, you know, I will work best when I when I dedicate time to working on something. And so I've learned to kind of take half hour blocks where, for example, I might spend half an hour in community. So I'm in our Facebook group. I might pick up the phone and call one of our clients and check in. I might email a few clients and say, how's your project going?

[00:28:13] But I'm doing a task and it's all about community. And I'm not checking emails or doing anything else while I'm doing that. Then I might move on to sponsorship, making some of the sponsorship calls that, you know, Rebecca and I are looking to work with different sponsors. So making those calls or doing the research. So I kind of work in time blocks and I have found that 20 minutes to 30 minutes for me produces really good results. I started setting forty five minutes to 90 minute blocks and I felt I was all on. All of a sudden there was like 30 tabs open on my computer.

[00:28:49] So I learned that I work best in short bursts of energy.

[00:28:55] And so this is a really great tip for entrepreneurs is to figure out how you work best. One of our clients that's painful for her. She needs to set two or three hour blocks to work on one thing from start to finish. And she's very analytical and that works well for her, whereas the way I work in a short burst of energy would be highly stressful for her. So knowing how you work can actually really positively impact your business and results.

[00:29:22] Yeah. We go we have a term for that called your winning pace. What's your winning pace? It's different than mine.

[00:29:29] And every, you know, whatever it is, was good to know what it is rather than just flounder all the time. So, you know, before we get out of here, you said some some beautiful things about Rebecca. Do you think she'll say about you?

[00:29:45] Oh, she'll probably say something like, oh, I love Schaar shows.

[00:29:50] She'll say something about my energy or passion for helping other people. I wouldn't be surprised if if Rebecca says sometimes you got a skier in because I can start one idea spirals and other.

[00:30:06] So I'm pretty sure Rebecca will have her own way of saying, you know, you got to bring her back. And that's why we need good business partners in our life.

[00:30:16] Well, that's great.

[00:30:17] So there's trust and respect.

[00:30:19] So you came up with a beautiful concept and I said we need it more now than ever with with what's going on in the world. So thanks so much for catching us up here.

[00:30:30] Thank you, Tom. Great to be with you.

[00:30:32] Yeah. So this is Raise a dream week. And this is the lady that invented it, folks. And get out there and dream, dream, dream and dream big. And people like Charmaine will help you realize it. How do they get hold of you or how do they check all this stuff out.

[00:30:50] Yeah. Easiest way is our Web site is raiseadream.com.

[00:30:53] Wow, what a creative name there. Geez.

[00:30:59] Our social media is the same. Nice and easy. Raise a dream. And we call it the short-form as rad, we think. Rebecca And I think we're pretty darn rad.

[00:31:10] All right. So we'll be talking to Rebecca Kirstein. Okay, so watch for her on the Friday folks as part of Raise a dream week. All right. So we will catch everybody on the next episode this Friday. See you later.

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