443 – Special Edition Training Episode: Tom talks Helping Others

Episode 443 – Helping Others
[00:00:08] 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 four hundred and forty three of Screw the Commute podcast. I'm calling this a special edition about using your strength and strengths, plural, because many of us have multiple strengths to help others. And it's a little bit off topic, it seems. But I'll put it all together for you a little later of how it could help you in your business to screw that commute. Now, hope you didn't miss Episode 442 Referral Marketing, that's you can't believe the the power of referral marketing. You can do a lot of the studies that I note in that episode say that people are four times more likely to buy if they've been referred by somebody else. Very, very powerful episode. That's Episode 442. And of course, if you want to see a past episode, you put it in Screwthecommute.com and slash and then the episode number 442. And remember, you can make a lot of money referring people to my products and services in our affiliate marketing program, up to 5000 bucks for just one referral. So anything in between. So you want to check that out? You can email me if you like details on that for that use, use my Tom@ScrewTheCommute.com address.

[00:01:54] Now I'm going to skip a lot of the stuff I usually do in the beginning here. I want to get to the main point of this special edition. And and why am I like doing this seemingly off topic topic about using your strength to help others? Well, the first reason is, is that I had a guest canceled, so I was desperate to get an episode out. All right. I'm being honest with you. And the second reason is that this can be a business topic in that the good things you and your business do can be recognized, which can bring you more business. You know, when you volunteer, it's you know, some people stay totally anonymous when they do that. And that's beautifully benevolent. But there is no reason unless you feel like you're going to get buried with requests for donations to hide it. I mean, brag about the good stuff you do because you're doing good stuff and you can do more good stuff the more business you get. Say so. So there's nothing wrong with that. And the third reason is that I want to make a big deal of this project I'm doing to help persons with disabilities in my school, and I really want you to contribute to the Go Fund Me campaign. I'm going to be running to help finance the program and hire people with disabilities to help run it.

[00:03:23] So. Everybody in every business have strengths, and in all the years I've run my mentor program, I've seen strengths in people they can't see in themselves. And I've also seen plenty of people who thought they had strengths they didn't really have. I see that frequently when people come to me to learn professional speaking and and they tell me that, well, I only need the business end because I'm already great on stage. And when I see their videos, I'm thinking to myself, you're great compared to what, a dead body. Maybe you should just try getting eulogy, speaking engagements or something. That way the crowd will be more forgiving. Anyway, thankfully, most of the time, it's the other way around. People have skills and strengths they downplay as insignificant. And in the words of the great late comedian John Pinette, I say, nay, nay. People would pay to learn that skill that you so cavalierly dismiss this episode, however, is not about selling those skills. I have tons of episodes showing you how to do that. This episode is about using those strengths to help other people less fortunate than you with no expectation of a return. I'm telling you, you will absolutely get a return. OK? It may not be monetary, but you will be rewarded. I'm not being religious here at all, I'm just talking about things that go in your mind. Let me tell you about it. So I've been rewarded lots of times and I want to tell you about them because I'm really proud of these things.

[00:05:19] And and keep in mind, I've been screwing the commute all my life and have had literally thousands of wonderful experiences speaking all around the world. But you know what? I hardly remember any of. What I remember. Is the time it was my birthday and I knew people would be sending me presents and I'm thinking, man, I don't need anything. What the heck do I need? Nothing. I'm thinking, what can I do to improve the world based around my birthday, then I thought about two little hypoallergenic white dogs I got from Bichon Rescue in Virginia. There Bichon Frise a dogs that they look like a poodle, but they're not a poodle, and every time the dogs would hear someone say to me, Oh, what a cute poodle, you have the dogs, or I think they were getting the complex that I should have got him a doggie psychiatrist. So here's what I did. I put up a website called IAmNotaPoodle.com. All right. We actually sell little T-shirts for the dogs there. Says, I am not a poodle and I haven't updated the site in years because this is a big promotion. Those dogs are in doggie heaven now. But. Then I threw a teleclass where I auctioned myself off and raised money for the rescue facility.

[00:06:50] And I'll tell you how much money in a minute, but let me tell you about the people that ran the facility out of their home. Robin and Jack were their names. Robin was a part time librarian. And, you know, they rake in the bucks, right? Right. And Jack was retired. They had the maximum allowed by the state of Virginia of 17 dogs in their house at any one time. They were always scraping and sacrificing to pay vet bills and all the the expenses to take care of these dogs, they're pretty much the most selfless people I had ever met. All right, so back to my birthday, so I threw a teleclass and auction myself off. I raised 24000 plus dollars for this beach rescue place. And when I showed up with the check, I thought Robin was going to have a heart attack. We'd have to rescue her. Because now little Freddie, one of the dogs could get his eye surgery and and they could get lots of the vet bills paid off at all. That's good stuff. So so that's what I remember about my birthday. And trust me, I've had a lot of birthdays, and that's the one I remember because that was the one I was able to use my strength in raising money to help out selfless people who didn't have my money making skills. And and I was able to help out those little innocent souls, those animals who had all been abused and abandoned.

[00:08:24] That's what I remember about my birthday. I got yeah, I got tons of cards and gifts anyway, but I really couldn't tell you who sent them and what I got using my strength to help others is all I remember. And that's not even my best effort. I'm going to tell you about that a little later. But what kind of strength do you have? Maybe you're a great banquet cook and you could help out even even start a soup kitchen for the homeless. Maybe you're a great listener and you could just spend some time talking to people. There and there's free online therapy sites where people just like you volunteer just to talk to people who are lonely or need help or need to stay anonymous for some reason or the other. And, you know, you just Google that free online therapy sites and you'll see all kinds of places there. Maybe you're great at sewing and you could do free repairs for underprivileged people. Maybe you're great at organizing and fundraising and you could contribute to some great cause. I mean, that's infinite what we're talking about here. Maybe your strength is encouraging people. So you go to hospitals and if there's anyone that doesn't have any family, you could visit with them. I used to do this any time I had when I had my entertainment company anywhere near a hospital, I would stop in and I would just I'd say, who doesn't have a family or who's by themselves and lonely? And and I would just sit and talk with him.

[00:09:56] I would just come in and, hey, how are you doing? How are you feeling? They didn't know who I was. It just didn't matter. You could just see the light light up in their eyes, especially if I was in costume, which this happened frequently. And you could do the same thing with retirement homes. And speaking of hospitals, and earlier I was speaking about dogs. Maybe you could find a really cuddly, quiet dog and get it certified as a therapy dog. It's one of the best things you could ever do. You just they're just so loving. And when you take them into places, people just melt and they just. Oh, you can't I can't even describe it on this podcast. The feelings that everybody gets when those dogs are around. Maybe your company makes cupcakes one day a month. Maybe you pass out cupcakes in shelters or donate a couple dozen to an abused women's shelter or something like that. And and I got to tell you, just saying that just brought a tear to my eye. I'll tell you why. One of the another one of the most memorable moments of my entire life. Is when I had my entertainment company and I was asked to play Santa Claus at an abused woman's safe house.

[00:11:18] I immediately agreed, of course, and and they picked me up and blindfolded me so I would not know the location of the house, they had high security on the place. And I had my Santa bag with me, and I assumed when I got there, they'd give me a bunch of gifts to give out to the women. Huh? Well, I got there and they had the most pitiful array of stuff to put in my bag, some of it to me look used. Not even worthy of the dollar store. And the one thing that's etched in my mind forever, forever. As I only had a pitiful looking dollar store lipstick to give to one lady. She burst into tears. And so did I. Fortunately, I had this giant beard and white hair hanging under my hat and Santa glasses on, obscuring the fact that Santa was crying. And it had been the only Christmas present she had ever received in her entire life. A pitiful dollar store lipstick. Now, did I get my fee for that job? No. Did I get any referral business from that job? No. Did I get a forever gift far greater than any money or business? Yeah, I did. If I didn't have an attitude of gratitude when I got in that house, I got one forever to this day and no money could match that moment.

[00:13:01] Maybe you could be a candy striper at the hospital and have an upbeat, encouraging word for all the distraught people that come in and out all day. Maybe you could do arts and an arts and crafts class for underprivileged kids. I mean, who knows what strengths? You have I mean, you do I'm just telling you how valuable they could be to someone that doesn't have them and needs them. Now, my best effort I'll never, ever, ever forget, I was sitting in the back of a speaking engagement, listening to all the other speakers, as I always do. The guy came on stage talking about a food bank he had in Las Vegas where they fed homeless children. I heard him talk about the average age of a homeless person was nine years old. I heard him talk about the fact the average child moves once every 30 days, the homeless child maybe from a roach infested motel to under a bridge or in a park. I heard him talk about how his organization had to teach the smaller children how to hide their food or the older kids would steal it from. And I was sitting there looking at my fat belly thinking I just cannot let this happen. So when it was my turn to speak. I used my fundraising auction skills and I auctioned myself off. I raised I can't remember if it was seventy four, seventy eight thousand, it was some enormous amount of money, about seventy four thousand at least in about five minutes.

[00:14:47] And just like Robin from the Bichon rescue place, I thought the guy running that organization who had spoken before me was going to have a heart attack. He told me afterwards that that money would feed two hundred and eighty eight homeless children for a year. And here I go, Mr. Softy, I started crying again and there was no hiding at this time. So my third reason for doing this podcast has to do with my current endeavor to do the best thing I've ever done in my life. Now, feeding those kids for a year was awesome. But as I look back, I just put a Band-Aid on their problem. Yeah, it was a really good Band-Aid, but it was only a Band-Aid. The project I'm working on now is designed to change a person's life forever for the better. I'm doing a pilot program for persons with physical disabilities to go through my school. Not only will they be able to study from home, they'll be able to legitimately be hired and work from home or start their own business or both whichever, whatever they want, but they won't have to suffer the enormous amount of trouble to travel to. You know, I want them to really screw the commute to travel, sometimes in wheelchairs and, you know, fight stairs and elevators and all the stuff that many people don't even think about twice.

[00:16:23] So I'm gonna try to get him out of that. Now, I have the strength to do this and my school is created to give people this strength. If they do their part, then they could have an entirely new career, and this means a lot to me and it would be to them, considering the statistics that, you know, people with disabilities are three point seven times as likely as the general population to be diagnosed with depression. The unemployment rates are the highest they've ever been in seven years for this population, and these people are four times more likely to attempt suicide. And in addition to that, they did correlation analysis, studies that indicated that people with disabilities had significantly lower self-esteem. Self cognition and greater social isolation than people without disabilities, as well as significantly less education, more overprotection during childhood, poor quality of intimate relationships and lower rates of salaried employment. I need your help to change this, I'm going to be the impetus and do whatever I can, but I need your help. The successful program with this pilot program I'm putting together will lead to much larger grants to help many more people with these challenges. Plus, I'll be hiring people with disabilities to be liaisons in the program and putting them through the school. Now, what am I asking you to do? Well, crowdfunding campaigns need momentum as soon as they're announced, the more people right at the beginning, the better.

[00:18:14] And I did a crowdfunding thing, I think, last Monday, if you want to listen to that all by crowdfunding. And that's how you can raise money that you need, but you don't have to pay it back. So I'm going to be announcing in about a week ago, fund me campaign to to fund this program for all these folks and I'd like you to support it as soon as you can with, you know, even if it's five bucks, the more people I can get right at the beginning, if I can get on the homepage of Go Find Me with a great program like this, it's possible we could do what we call over fund and then I can get more people into the program. See, folks, I put I don't know for sure. Jennifer could probably figure it out, but probably two million dollars into the school and have never taken anything out. And that I can remember maybe I don't know, some incidental expenses one time, but I mean, trust me, not much. And so if we can get on that home page of Go Fund Me. And get lots of funding in, it's all going to go to these scholarships to more people. So in the South in hiring, we're going to hire, like I said, will hire people with these disabilities and put them through the school.

[00:19:35] So just I'm just so excited about this program. But I do need your help. So please email me at I'm using a specific address for this program. It's TomAntion@gmail.com. If you would like to participate, I'll put you on a list and keep you informed of when the thing goes live in the anything you can do to help was wonderful. Hey, if you're really super flush with cash, maybe you want to sponsor a person by yourself, you know, so I'll make sure you get a good deal on it. But but get in touch with me. And and even if you don't participate in this program, what can you do? What are your strengths that the world needs that aren't being utilized to their fullest? And I did a a real for Instagram. I'll be put it up later today. That says it says I hate to be the one to tell you. But sooner or later, you're going to die. And then the second part of it is, how about making every day really, really important while you're still here? And doing something like this could not only make it important for you, but create a legacy for yourself and to help people far, far beyond what you can even imagine.

[00:20:56] All right. Thanks for listening. I'll catch you on the next episode.

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