16. Tyler Foley
Actor, Speaker, Leader
Eric: Hey everybody. Welcome back to The Eric Mueller Show, a podcast where we explore what makes any successful person's inner clock tick.
Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to our first actor on the show. Sean Tyler Foley is an accomplished film and stage performer. He's been acting in film and television since he was about 6 years old. He's appeared in productions such as Freddy vs. Jason, Door to Door, Carrie and the musical Ragtime. Tyler is passionate about helping others confidently take the stage and impact their audiences with their stories. He's currently the managing director of Total Buy In and the author of a #1 best-selling book, The Power to Speak Naked.
Tyler is a father, husband, son, and performer, in that order. Some days, he feels like he has dabbled in every industry on the planet, from oil and gas, to aviation, to film and television. But that diverse experience is, what has made him so versatile. Regardless of the industry or the titles that he has held, what they all [00:01:00] had in common was promoting and encouraging people to be heard and understood.
The skills and resources he has garnered along the way have enabled him to become an entertaining, professional speaker, and a knowledgeable trainer who inspires others to reach for their dreams. With his distinct and direct style, Tyler is emerging as one of North America's sought-after leaders in the field of public speaking for personal and professional development.
Get ready to hear the lessons Tyler has learned and the grace he has discovered in each event of his life. Let's head on over to the interview.
[EDM music begins playing and then fades-out]
Eric: All right. So welcome back to the Eric Mueller Show podcast where we explore, what makes any successful person's inner clock tick. Today, we're lucky to have Tyler Foley on the show. He's an actor. He's a performer. He's an author. Tyler, welcome to the show, sir.
Tyler: Oh Eric it's my absolute pleasure and joy. I've been looking forward to this. So let's jump [00:02:00] into it.
Eric: Yeah man. So you began your acting career at a young age. You were six years old. How did that happen, What opportunity brought you into that space at such a young age?
Tyler: Well, to be honest, I'm not really sure. It's kind of a chicken before the egg scenario. Horse before the cart. My father passed away just after Christmas in my grade one year, and I had done a Christmas Pageant play. And so I don't know if it was because I had done the pageant play that my mom and my uncle kind of knew that I had a thing for the performing arts or if it was because my father's passing and they felt that they needed an outlet for me because I wasn't really outwardly grieving the loss of my father. And I don't know if that was you know again a developmental thing or an age thing or what but I just you know I don't [00:03:00] think at that age I could fully comprehend the finality of death, but either way I wasn't really, I was very emotionally shut off let's say, and so I think my mom and my uncle were concerned and so they were looking for a place where I could have an emotional outlet, and I had taken a shine to being on stage and had been doing a couple of the school, pageant kind of things. And didn't shy away from it.
And so, they ended up, you know, asking around and figuring out how to get me on stage. And I was lucky at a very young age, as you pointed out, six years old, starting in professional theater, and then eventually moving into film and television, graduating from a fine arts high school, and then moving to Vancouver, which is Hollywood North here in Canada and being able to make a really long, lengthy, successful career of just being a professional actor.
Most actors, when they get into the business, they always say oh, what are you? Oh, [00:04:00] I'm an actor. Yeah, but what do you really do? Oh well, I wait tables at Denny's. You know what I mean? Where I was very blessed from the time I was 17 and moved out to the coast, all I did was act, and I picked up a couple of side gigs here and there, just for fun, but it was never a thing that I had to do and acting was my primary source of income. That was where I was making the majority of my money. And I was just really lucky to be able do that. But a lot of that came from just the exposure early on.
Eric: So did you deal with any type of stage fright? Like you mentioned, I mean you're as a child as 6 years old. I mean, you maybe just at the very early stage of even being able to form memories at that point. Did you have did you struggle with any type of stage fright at that age?
Tyler: No. And that was the beautiful thing. Anybody who has a child will know exactly what I'm talking about. When you're 5,4,6 in that range, you know, the world is new to you. You're exploring it, and you don't have any fear, right? You watch [00:05:00] any first grader run around the playground and they're up on the monkey bars and they're super manning off into the stand and every parent goes, oh no. Right. But Johnny, he's taking a leap, he's going wherever he wants and, you know, little Eric and Tyler are sitting there laughing at him, encouraging him want to do it usually, and, you know, and so you just, you don't have a sense of fear of anything.
So one of the greatest gifts that I got very young was to be on stage and not be afraid of it. The first time I actually had stage fright, wasn't until years later, I was 14 the first time I actually first experienced stage fright, and it was horrible experience. I didn't like it at all, but it was again, a great gift because I was able to later analyze where stage fright actually comes from and be able to look back and say, well, why is it that [00:06:00] at six years old, I could go and do it, but at 14, giving a Remembrance Day recital of a poem in front of veterans terrified the hell out of me, like, what was it about that? And I'll never forget the way that it happened either.
Our Memorial Day or Veterans Day. Every year, typically particularly in the schools, somebody comes up and reads a very famous poem in Flanders Fields and because I had been in theater and performance for as long as I had been, they just always ask me to do it. There's one of those oh you just you just know Tyler's going to do it, and I probably been doing that poem at that point four or five years, but this time they brought all the veterans in from around the area, and they're probably I don't know six or seven, eight in the front row, but I'll never forget that they wheeled in this one guy right at the very end, just as everybody was [00:07:00] getting settled and we were about to start and they kind of did like, you know, the honorary welcome to kind of thing. And these are our veterans, give them a hand and this guy they wheeled in was grizzled. Like, I mean, mean looking like, Clint Eastwood if he ate five lemons and got kicked in the nards. It's kind of look at that on this guy, right? Like he was mean, and he had these crystal blue eyes and years later watching Game of Thrones, I'm like, that's the dude he looks just like a white walker. Like his eyes were the most purest blue you could ever see.
And I remember getting up to deliver the poem and this man kind of leaned in on a he had a walking cane so they brought him in a wheelchair, but he must have had the walking cane to help him get in and out of the vehicle or something, but he took this cane off of his lap and he leaned in and over on top of it and just kind of like, stared at me. Now, what [00:08:00] that man was thinking, I have no idea but in my head, he went okay kid, show me what you got because you haven't seen anything, and I've been there.
And in that moment, I felt so judged and so unworthy to be delivering these words and it all flew out. I forgot everything I was supposed to say. My armpits became a swamp, my mouth became a desert, my hands became the Arctic, and I couldn't figure out how I could have all three climates going on on one body at one time and nothing.
My head was in the clouds because it was just air inside of my brain, and it was gone. And I to this day, I wish that I could go back and redo it, but I can’t. But what a great learning experience for me to realize later in life that it was the sense of judgment that I was afraid of not actually public speaking [00:09:00] and that's one of the things that I discuss in my book and in all of my training courses is people will come to me and say I'm terrified of public speaking. I say no you're not. They say oh no I am, and I go when was the last time you ordered breakfast at Denny's and they go oh I don’t know, last week. And I say well then you spoke in public. Well but it’s different because I'd have to speak in front of strangers, and I go did you know your server. And they go no. Then you talked in front of a stranger in public. You were public speaking to a stranger, so you're not terrified of public speaking. Usually what it is is we’re terrified of judgment so.
Eric: So yeah. So if so if you're giving a talk in front of people that you know, and care about like I just vividly remember being back in high school and delivering you know you write your essay but then at the end of the year, senior year, you have to present it for like 10 minutes or something in front of your classmates friends, professors, maybe the president of the school and like you all eyes are on you and you don't want to let them down. Do you think is that kind of, where that stage fright comes from? You're afraid of the judgement of the people you care about?
Tyler: [00:10:00] Yeah, well, so it's either the fear of letting the people you care about down, or fear of judgement of people who don't know, you and may not understand or more specifically, fear of letting yourself down. I think a lot of times we put a lot of pressure on ourselves that this thing has to be perfect or, you know, this idea or this concept, we're really critical of either the research that we've done or the information that we're presenting or how we're presenting it and because of that, we come in with our own prejudgment of what other people are going to think and we project that onto the audience, and I try to remind people that you got to remember the audience is on your side before you start talking, and people go I don't understand what you mean by that and I'm like well listen.
Think about the last time you were at any presentation, right Eric, or even that time when you did have to present the paper in high school. [00:11:00] Before you went up and did it, somebody else was doing it and you were sitting in the audience correct.
Eric: Correct.
Tyler: And when you are sitting in the audience, did you think to yourself, man, I hope this person screws up royally. I hope their research is poor. I hope this information is poorly presented, and I really hope they stumble and choke through this thing. Did you think?
Eric: Absolutely not.
Tyler: No, nobody does. Usually, we're lost in our own thought going. Oh I wonder what I'm going to do for dinner tonight. I wonder what my girlfriend's up to. I should probably phone her because we haven't talked in a day and then she gets mad at me and right. Like we're lost in our own thoughts and then somebody goes [clears throat] and taps the podium and then we look up and we go okay, right? And now we're on board.
So our jobs as presenters is just to come up and give them information. But so often we get lost in our own thought thinking, all of these things and projecting it onto our audience. When in fact, our audience is just there to be entertained or be informed [00:12:00] or at least kill the next 20 to 30 minutes of their life. Like they they're not judging you the way that you are projecting judgment on them and as soon as we realized that the audience is on our side and that really we were our own worst enemy.
The beauty of that is it means that now we can tackle that thing because it's internal thoughts, not external thoughts, and we can control our internal thoughts and that's the key to getting over any kind of fear, including the fear of speaking in public.
Eric: Yeah, and I want to get to your book soon here. The Power to Speak Naked is the title of your book. And, you know, anybody listening that wants to develop their presentation skills, I haven't read the book yet, but I'm going to highly recommend it already because I think as you can gather this far into the episode here, Tyler's got a lot of wisdom about this. You know, it's not his first rodeo in terms of being on a podcast and speaking about these things, but we'll get to that in a second.
The first thing I want to ask you though, Tyler kind of piggybacking off of the, you know, earlier topics we've discussed here. [00:13:00] How does one go about discovering their audience. Let's say you're out of high school. Let's say you've developed a passion for some type of craft that you want to master, and you want to eventually start to share that with other people. You want to start to tell your story. So how do you discover the audience that can, you know, gather the most benefit from the story that you want to tell?
Tyler: So when I'm doing my workshops on my seminars, we run people through two exercises. So there's two really clear, really fast, very rapid ways of discerning who your ideal target audience is. The first one is more for people who have lived a little bit, right? So typically we're talking at this point executives, or people who have gone through a something, and I will ask them and your audience and yourself. Who were you five years ago, where were you, what was your mindset at? What did you need to know? [00:14:00] Like what was standing in your way? What was helping you get through? Like what were your strengths and what were your areas of improvement and if you could go back, five years, Eric and talk to yourself 5 or even 10 years ago, what advice did you need to hear it that time to get through, to where you are now? What would have been incredibly beneficial? What could have accelerated your growth?
If somebody could have just come to you, five years ago, when said X. That is typically who your ideal target audience is, is you five or ten years ago, particularly, if you have some kind of experience or some kind of event in your life or something that you can draw upon. You five years ago, what did you need to learn, and then you start teaching that to people and you basically speak to yourself and the beauty about speaking to yourself is nobody knows your story better than you. Nobody knows your journey better than you, [00:15:00] so nobody can give you advice better than you having gone through everything that you have to get there and then that you just speak to yourself and you will find other people who are in similar circumstances who need your advice and it's a beautiful way of finding your audience.
The other way to do that, because some people go, I don't know, I haven't done anything. What have I done, right? I'm just out of school. I need to know who to talk to now. And for those people, the other device that we use, and the other exercise that we walk them through, I want you to think about who typically comes to you and be really specific: gender age, occupation, income level. Who typically comes to you for advice. And what advice do you give? What do you find yourself giving the most often?
And for me that's how the book came to be. The power to Speak Naked came from the fact that the majority of the people [00:16:00] that come to me and asked me for my advice, typically are female entrepreneurs and heads of charities. So charity directors, usually 35 to 55 who have seen me as an emcee to one of their events or brought me on as a keynote and have come to me afterwards and said, how do you do it? And what they're usually asking in, how do you do it? Is how do you get up on stage? How are you that engaging like oh, I could never tell a story like that and yet everybody can. It's a very simple thing to do. I've just been blessed with 35 year’s experience of being in the performing arts to be able to know all these tips and tricks and so I'd start to give them advice.
I'd say, well, let's start with your story. Let's talk about the hero's journey. Let's look at some story arcs, let's look at staging and theatrics when you get up and present, and I would say it over and over and over and over and over again. And I was really just saying these ten simple bits of advice over and over again. And I expanded on that, and next thing I [00:17:00] knew I had a book, and it was easier to just present people with the book than it was to keep having the same conversation over again.
So, the two ways that you can identify and find your ideal avatar, the people who you are going to be able to best, serve is one look at who you were five to ten years ago and tell yourself the advice that you needed to get to where you are now or analyze who's coming to you the most for advice, get very specific with who that demographic is like, who is it that comes to you? What do they look like? What are they doing? And what advice are you giving? And that's the advice that you need to give to your ideal demographic.
Eric: So, in speaking specifically to The Power to Speak Naked, you would say that you basically summarized essentially the why for that book but just touch on a little bit of if we were to, if we were to summarize the book and 60 to 90 seconds, what would, what would you say that is?
Tyler: Oh, it's simple to read, easy to digest [00:18:00] tips and tricks from 35 years of experience of a professional actor on how to overcome stage fright, re-engage your audience if you lose them, keep them engaged so that you don't lose them, and some, you know, high-level ninja tips from the pros that most of them don't even want you to learn.
And really, the book is designed for people who don't want to be on the big huge stages. But are terrified to just stand up in front of a board room or at a wedding or even speak to their spouse or loved one or family about things that are weighing down on their hearts and finding the power to expose themselves to the raw naked truth and have the power within them to speak it out loud.
Eric: It's great advice. I'm curious to ask. So, you've performed in movies, TV, you’re a keynote speaker, what does your preparation process look like as you’re leading up to those presentations? Like how do you get in the zone so to speak, when you're getting [00:19:00] ready to a record A. you know a scene in a movie or B. deliver a keynote speech?
Tyler: Well, it really depends on on what it is. So, ultimately, the first question and where most of my effort goes in is who is my audience and what is the overall expectation of this performance? So, a keynote is drastically different from showing up and being a day player on moved the which is drastically different from staging a performance in a musical, right? Each one has their own different things but what they all share in common is an audience.
So the first thing I need to know is who is the ultimate audience going to be what is the end product user, right? And then what is the expectation of my performance for that end user? So in a keynote presentation I’m typically there to deliver some kind of educational, [00:20:00] aha moment, either it's inspirational or it's straight-up educational. I like to blend the two because I find that when you can tie emotions into the educational learning, they tend to stick better, but that's a whole other thing altogether, but I do know that I need to present an idea and have it stick.
If I'm doing a musical, I need to develop in a character that's going to be entertaining in a live scenario where I can feed off the energy of the audience and the audience can feed off the energy of me. So I need to be large and big and powerful with my voice and my movement and my body. If I'm on film, that is a totally different thing because that audience is sitting in a darkened theater months, if not years, after I've actually recorded that performance, and it needs to be believable enough, that it can be projected onto a 40-foot screen and still look good. So there's a lot more subtlety to that and there's a lot more knowing that I have multiple [00:21:00] invested parties that are in it.
So first, I need to impress my agent enough that my agent wants to actually send me out for the audition. Secondly, I need to impress the casting director enough that I actually get cast for the role and then I need to actually do a performance that the director likes that I don't end up on the cutting room floor, and then after all that that performance has to be good enough that the audience that is sitting in that darkened theater 18, to 24 months later goes. Yeah, it was all right.
Eric: Yeah.
Tyler: So the preparation is always different depending on what it is, but what it has in common is what is the end-user expecting out of this performance and then that drives all of the preparation work that I would do leading up to it.
Eric: And we can apply that to really presenting in any, you know, element of your, of your life or career me, you want to think about, who is this for? I mean, I try to think of that with this podcast. Who am I talking to right now? I'm still trying to figure out the [00:22:00] audience, you know? Those of you listening maybe you could drop a comment and in the website or some and help me out here. But I mean I guess Tyler, how do I find more of that niche in this space? I mean, this is a success podcast, there's a lot of them out there. You may have seen some earlier guests, I've interviewed: John Lee Dumas, Jordan Harbinger. Guys that are doing similar type things. Not trying to copy those guys, trying to create my own niche. You have any advice for me there sir?
Tyler: Yeah, so the first thing that I'm going to ask is anybody who's listening to this right now who has enjoyed what Eric has presented to you over the last couple of episodes that you've listened to, I want you to hit pause right now, and I want you to go, and I want you to give Eric a five-star review on whatever medium that you're listening to right now. And I want you to be specific with that review.
What was the episode that you listen to? It doesn't have to be mine but if you want to mention me, I'm more than happy to take the plug, right? But if it was John Lee Dumas, or if it was whoever it happened to be. Say I listened to this episode, this is what [00:23:00] I took away from it, this is a five-star show and what that will do is it will help you get better content from Eric because now he knows what you're listening to, right? And that's how we get the feedback, and it'll help Eric find a larger audience so that he can bring on more experts like John or myself so that you can get the most out of it.
So pause right now, I've asked you to do it. It'll only take two seconds and me and Eric will never know in live time how long it took you to write that review but hit pause, give a five star review and then come back.
Welcome back listener. Thank you for doing that, and I hope Eric that helps you answer the question. One of the first things you want to do is don't guess. Ask. Ask your audience to participate in it. There was a study that was done on audience engagement and your audience will have about a 78% engagement, if it's a monologue, if it's just you talking [00:24:00] to them but if it's a dialogue, the engagement goes up to 92%. So, you get a 14% increase just by engaging them in the conversation.
So, again, audience, if you're listening to this right now, get on the message board. Put comments in the chat. Let Eric know what was great about a show. What wasn't great about a show. What you want to hear more of then what you want to hear less of so that he can serve you the audience better and ultimately Eric, that's the end sum game. What can we do to make sure that our audience is getting the most out of what they expect from us?
Eric: Appreciate that Tyler. And yeah, anybody listening on the website, show website page. There's a button that says email me, that's the easiest way to contact me and you can obviously look up on social media as well. But yeah, please let me know how I'm doing. I mean, I've enjoyed doing this thus far, I really enjoy meeting. I mean I feel like I'm the lucky one here. I get to meet all these cool people and interview them. You get to benefit from their advice and with Tyler here, we're going to kind of take a different angle now.
We've heard about the acting, [00:25:00] we've heard about the performance side of how we can connect with an audience, but I really want to ask you now. Tyler, what is your definition of the word success. How do you define that term?
Tyler: Well, it depends on really honestly on what kind of success because I think we can have personal success. We can have professional success. To me, I’m a metrics fan, I like numbers. I like things that show improvement and for me success is continual improvement. If I am making progress towards something, if I can show repeated effort towards a goal or a target.
And the other way that I measure success is not only the growth that I achieve in myself, but the growth I'm able to help others achieve because I think the right the measure of a man is what he leaves behind as far as a legacy. And I think success is shown by the impact [00:26:00] that you have on others. So for me, I find my greatest success in the success of my clients. So I look at people like a Dede Loveridge who has grown and incredible charity to support infancy and early childhood loss because that's the cause that a very large, majority of the population actually is impacted by and vast majority of the population does not talk about.
Mental health itself is becoming more prevalent and we're able to discuss a lot of things around, you know, suicide and mental health even just, you know, people being in states of depression or anything like that. But one of the things that isn't talked about is the impact on women and families when they lose a child either pre-birth or just after birth, or early infancy and Dede has put together this incredible [00:27:01] charity and organization that helps mothers and families deal with that kind of loss. I would love to say that I was instrumental in it. She gives me a lot of credit for it. I think she's just an incredible person. I helped her craft her story, so that she could find a larger audience to bring people in. And I think of people like that and I think of friends that I've helped.
Connie Jacob has very similar charity. I helped Woman by the name of Sue at Literacy for Life, spread her message. These, that's when I find that I've gotten success is by seeing the success of the people that I've worked with be able to grow their message exponentially and have impact on the world. It's that ripple effect where I can go, I had a part in that.
No, it's not all on me, but I had a part in helping push that movement forward, and that's when I find the greatest satisfaction, and therefore, where I find the greatest success is helping others [00:28:01] succeed, right? A high tide raises all boats. That's where I want to be. I want to be that momentum. I want to be that initial catalyst that springs things forward and that helps me in my own personal development, and now I can measure off what my personal growth is, and I think ultimately that success if we can grow every day. You're either in growth or contraction, we're either growing or dying. So if I can grow every day, that's success to me.
Eric: I love that answer. I love how you can hear the passion in that answer and really wanting to provide value to other people. I think that to me, I mean, my definitions of success, I'm trying to think of what it, you know, it changes really every time I talk to somebody new about what they think it is, but it really it really just inspires me, and I hope it inspires you everyone listening that, you know, you really want to leave something behind that's valuable in your life, I think. And, you know, you want to [00:29:01] A. you want to find something that you're passionate about, but B. you want to help people realize, you know, the value that you can provide to them from being passionate about that. You've done that with your acting career. Now, you're doing that with your speaking and, you know, having a book that you've written that can help other people achieve their goals, and slowly progress towards whatever it is. They're trying to chase.
Tyler: Yeah, and it's the I know that it's the right path because as you said you can hear the passion in it. I think if I could leave one bit of advice for any listener, anywhere if you're doing something that you're not passionate about, ask why? Because if you are, if you again, you're either in growths or contraction, and if you're stuck somewhere, that's sucking your soul dry. You've got to stop, you got to stop now, and it doesn't mean that you have to give up all responsibility, but I definitely think it means that you need to find out where your passions are and what ignites you, [00:30:01] what drives you forward, because it could still be within the exact same sphere. You could be doing the same job of maybe, it's the company that isn't supporting your growth, and you could do the same job across the street and find incredible growth and success and encouragement.
And I would, I would strongly encourage people with you. If you can't find the joy in your life, you need to stop because I get up every morning. I do this noon, you know, from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. at night and I don't even blink. If I have do a podcast halfway around the world and they're like, yeah, our only recording time is 3:30 a.m. where you are. I'm like great. I will have coffee going at three o'clock, so that I can be on your show because I'm up and I'm jazzed and I'm ready to serve and you have to find that passion, you have to find that passion.
Eric: So if someone's listening right now, and they feel like they're in that situation you just described [00:31:01] where they are, their souls is being sucked out of them. They feel like at the workplace or in some component of their life. How can they find their why, if they think, why am I doing this? And they figure out why they don't want to do that thing? How can they find the why to what they want to? How do they find their passion, Tyler?
Tyler: Well so, again, I think everybody knows what their passion is. I would ask anybody, what could you talk about for an hour unprompted and not even stop to breathe? That's usually the first cue where your passions lie. For me, music, hockey and speaking, not necessarily in that order, right? I will riff on all three of those topics for eons and decades because they're where my passions are.
So now I have been drumming since I was 14 years old. So we're approaching the third decade of a drumming career, and I am definitely not Dave Grohl, and I will never be in a big band. I love to do it for the fun, [00:32:01] just because it's fun, right? It's not going to pay the bills for me and hockey, I'm a goalie, but I'm also five foot eight and a hundred and forty pounds. So I get lit up upstairs day in, day out and I don't mind because I still have fun playing but it ain't gonna pay the bills.
But I have this other thing that I do where I'm articulate and unfortunately we don't have video for your fine audience to see, but I'm a good looking, handsome dude. And at 40 I look 30, maybe even 25 if I moisturize and get the right lighting. So I have this one skill set that I can use to actually make an income. And I also have surrounded myself with the people who can support me to do it. My wife is incredible. You know, she is an unbelievably talented professional in her own right. She and her job give me the freedom in the flexibility to be able to do what I want to do, and that's part of finding your [00:33:01] what you're good at is going down these avenues and having the courage to take that leap of faith going, look, when I started this, I made less than $10,000 my first year, you know? But luckily that had exponential growth every year, and we have literally doubled or tripled our income annually every year through the business just because as if you are really truly passionate about it, if it really is a thing that you're driven to do, you will find the ways to make it work.
And to your initial question of actually finding that why because that's how you find the passion, but the passion only serves you so far, you need to know why you're getting up every morning to do it. One of the jobs that I've held is a safety consultant, and when you're a safety consultant we often have to do incident investigations, and we usually use various different methods to determine the root cause. One [00:34:01] of the methods and I love the method, hate the name is called the five Why’s and the five Why’s is a great one where you just ask, why why, why, why until you can ask why anymore.
The problem is, when you call it five Why’s, people think you just ask five and give up. But I also have a five-year-old daughter. Her name is Mackenzie, and what does she ask me all the time, Eric.
Eric: She asks you why?
Tyler: Why, why, why, why, why, why, why and she never stops. She never stops. Until her curiosity, is fully satiated. And so I call it the Mackenzie principal and it's one of the things that we it's even in the book, right? In the trainings on the website, the Mackenzie principal and all we're doing is we’re asking why. Why Is hockey a passion for me? Well, because I'm Canadian. Well, is that the only reason? Well, no, because I've been playing it since I was young. So why am I so invested in it? Well, because every time I get on the ice, I feel alive. Why? Well, because I get exercise, because [00:35:01] I have camaraderie because I feel part of a team and because I'm a goalie, I get to feel like I'm part of a team, but I still get to have solo individual performance that is judged. Literally if we lose the game, it's because the goalie sucked. We win the game, it's because we scored more goals, and they always forget about the goalie. So, it's a really insular position to play. And if I keep delving into the Why’s, Why’s, Why’s, Why’s, Why’s, ultimately, it comes down to fraternity.
To me, I value one of my core values is friendship, fraternity, and brotherly love. And I seek that from a humanitarian standpoint, and I think if we dive even deeper into the why it's because when my father passed away, my mother needed the support of a community to raise me and my sister on her own. And I see the value every time when they say it takes a village to raise a child, my mom had an entire town on her side, [00:36:01] and that's important to me, and I seek it out, and it's one of my highest driving values and because I've seen the good that can come from when community rallies around somebody and because I've seen the struggles being a single woman in this world. Those are where my passions lie.
So I know that I am here, primarily to serve women, 35 to 55 who have an incredible message but need the support. And if I dive down into my why it's tied to my mother and seeing the support that community gave her.
Eric: So that why might tie directly into this next question I'm going to ask for you, and that is the backbone of my show. So the reason I started this podcast was really to find out yeah not only what does someone define success as, what makes someone successful in that way. But what keeps them driven towards that success on a daily basis, and what is the one single driving force that keeps your inner clock ticking towards the success that you've had? I mean, it's probably tied in with the why in some way but [00:37:01] I'm curious what your answer to this might be.
Tyler: Well, for me, my driving factor now is my daughter. You know, she's 5 years old. My wife is a dynamic and incredible human being and in construction. So a very male-dominated industry, and she's a titan amongst men. Like she, she is top of her class, and I love that she is not afraid to use her voice that she stands up for what she believes to be true. And you know, she goes up against guys who have years of experience on her and have theoretically above and beyond hers, and she will say no this is how it's supposed to be, and I want my daughter to be able to have that same strength and conviction in what she says.
It's what I actually [00:38:01] dedicated the book to my dedication is to McKenzie. It says, may you always have the courage to speak up for what you believe in and the confidence that your voice will be heard. And so if I expect that of my daughter, if I want to deliver that to my daughter, I have to create a world in which that is possible. And the only way that I know to do that is to empower strong women like my mother, like my sister, like my wife, like my daughter. So that they can share their message and if they can share their message, then when Kenzie gets to an age where she really has something that she wants to say that she knows she will be able to do it and deliver in a way in which her message will be received, will be understood and not only that embraced, and that's what drives me every day to wake up and do what I do.
Eric: Boom. And it perfectly ties in with a previous guest of mine, Janan Sarwar. [00:39:01] She is a woman pharmacist and she is I mean, she is really, she's doing great things in the pharmacy world and a big piece of what drives her is she wants to empower women, people that are, you know, maybe a little bit scared to speak up or, you know, different groups that feel possibly that they are marginalized or their word, you know, their voice is not going to be heard. And so, I appreciate you speaking of that. And that's really, that's really inspiring.
You know, I'm not a parent yet. At some point I will be, I hope. I'm currently actually my fiancé, and I we just got engaged last December. So relatively new,
Tyler: Congratulations.
Eric: Thank you, sir. Yeah, so I mean, I'm sure the value system will change a little bit when that happens, but at this point in time, I mean, you you answer that question perfectly and confidently. I think to myself. How would I answer that question? What keeps me driven? I think I've got kind of an idea. I'm not, I'm not bold enough to say it on the show right now, but at some point audience, you will hear what my take is on that. But, yeah, Tyler appreciate you sharing that. And what's your I mean, what's your NHL team? You say you're a hockey fan, [00:40:01] do you follow the NHL I'm sure.
Tyler: Oh yeah. So, and just for your audience's sake, when we were recording this because you're not hearing it live, I have no idea if the Toronto Maple Leafs just won over the Montreal Canadiens because they were going into overtime, tied, 3-3 with Toronto leading, the series 3 games to 1, but neither one of those are my team. I actually cheer for what is probably one of the first teams in the NHL currently, and that is the Vancouver Canucks because I was born and raised in Calgary and the Canucks and the Flames, always had a huge rivalry in, and the Flames are second in my heart.
But when I, you know, my formative years, 17 to 25, I was in Vancouver, and I was doing good enough in acting that I could have season tickets. So I had season tickets, this first row of the upper deck of GM Place, right at the goal line, in the opposing team's own for the first and third periods And [00:41:01] oh, man that was the time of the West Coast Express, Naslund, Brandon Morrison, and I actually played hockey very briefly against Brandon Morrison so it was great to watch somebody who I knew be in the show. And yeah, you know, the Canucks man Canucks all the way and I feel that that's, you know, I gotta I believe in so many people who aren't lost causes that I've got to have at least one lost cause in my life and I feel the Canucks are it.
Eric: Man. Yeah, I mean hey I'm a Minnesota sports fan, so I've been through a fair amount of heartbreak in my short life as a fan. I mean teams go back, you know, earlier than what I was born obviously, but I'm a big Vikings fan. I'm a big Minnesota Wild fan.
So yeah, this, this episode will come out after we find out if the Minnesota Wild, beat the Vegas Golden Knights this coming Friday and game seven. But yeah, Tyler, I was going to say, if, if one of your team's is paying in overtime right now, that would be insane that you would jump on some random dude’s podcast, miss [00:42:01] the overtime.
Tyler: Yeah, well you know there's I've got it paused, so I'm going to watch it live when we get off but I told you man. What's your passion? Where's your passions lie? You want proof that this is my passion. Hockey is second but speaking is first my friend, and I know that I can get my you and me being on this podcast is not going to change the results of that final score and there's three more rounds to play regardless. So I am dedicated to you and serving your audience and I will find out how the Leafs did when we hang up.
Eric: Yeah. Who do you want to win that game? You do you have a is there I mean, I'm not as familiar with the Canadian teams in the NHL. I mean are there big rivalries between those teams?
Tyler: Oh yeah, especially Leafs, and the Habs. I mean, that's Anglophone and Francophone Canada clashing in the only way that Canadians know how to right? We're the most civil country on the planet until you put sticks in our hands [00:43:01] and blades on our feet, and then we're violent is hell.
Eric: Yeah.
Tyler: So yeah, I know that's a huge, huge rivalry. I kind of want the Leafs to win, just because again, I as a Flames fan second, I have a big rivalry with Montreal, and I love the fact that the Flames are still to this day the only team ever to win the Stanley Cup on Montreal ice because no other team has done it, so ha ha ha. But yeah, no there's a, there's a big rivalry. It's kind of like, you know, the Islanders and the Rangers like they just they don't like each other. They won't like each other or Pittsburgh and Washington, right? Like or Pittsburgh and Philadelphia or Philadelphia and anyone? Yeah, it's a big rivalry.
Eric: Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I mean, I'm an NFL more than an NHL fan, but man I just love sports. I mean that thinking about passions like I'm also [00:44:01] a drummer. So I know that side, I mean, I thought that musician, you know desire but Tyler really like, I mean, I think what a lot of people listening probably are having the same feeling as me in this. I feel spread thin sometimes.
There's so many different things that I want to work on. Like A. right now, I have a full time position as a pharmacist but B. I want to work on this podcast, I want to try to develop some EDM productions on the side, I want to be able to spend time with my fiancé, want to be able to have a good relationship with my friends and my family like do any tips on how to balance all of those facets of one's life? If you're balancing side hustles, primary jobs.
Tyler: Yeah, so I’ve seen this demo done probably a half a dozen times if not more. There's a great YouTube video on it and it talks about, you know, I think the YouTube video is a professor. He comes in with a jar and a thing of golf balls and some rocks and some sand right and he stuffs the golf balls into the jar, [00:45:01] and you know, he says these are the most important things in your life, and, you know, this is what you should spend your time on and then he puts the pebbles in and, you know, first he asks is the jar full right with the golf balls. Just the golf balls and everybody says, yes and then he pours in the rocks and shakes it around. And now goes, is the jar full and they go, yes. And then he pours the sand and he goes now is the jar full, and he gets it like just packed tight at that point and they go, yes. Then he pours all the contents out. Puts the sand in first. And then puts the rocks in and then half of the golf balls don't fit because you filled up the bottom half of the jar with the small stuff, right?
Eric: Yeah it’s packed in there.
Tyler: And that's what that ends up being the big Epiphany and the point of it and yet we still do that like you can see those visualizations, you can go to all the Tony Robbins of the world you can hear the motivational speakers all discuss about time management and yet if we don't, prioritize the things that are the most important to us, [00:46:01] and we don't know how to prioritize those if we don't actually analyze it. So you know, where are your passions? The podcast, the fiancé, I hope.
Eric: Oh yeah.
Tyler: Yeah, right. And so these are the things where we need to prioritize the time. We need to create boundaries, and make you know these are the things that are non-negotiable for me. Like for me I have a few non-negotiables every day. I know that everyday I'm going to wake up, and I'm going to fill my water bottle, and I'm going to have at least one liter of water. I tried doing the 75 Hard. I successfully did 75 Hard. I drank four liters or one gallon of water every day for 75 days, which means I peed a gallon every day for 75 days, and I will never do that again. But I do know that when I'm hydrated, I function better. So the first thing I do is make sure that I have my water.
Second thing I do is make sure that I have my cold shower in the morning. [00:47:01] I’ve been doing cold showers now, three years straight, and I have, I think I've missed two days in those three years, and I believe in streaks. That's the other thing. I love again, I'm a metrics, man. I see, I like to be able to measure and say, these are the things that I do, but my non-negotiables are my cold shower, drinking my water, making sure that I read and sing with my daughter every night. These are the, what is my priority, right? And then what are the smaller things? What serves my vision?
Well it's doing things like this, doing the podcast, doing promotions for the book, going out and doing the courses when we're able to do the courses, making sure that I'm serving my private coaching clients so they then get to slot in the time but their time doesn't get slotted in until I've served everything else. One of the reasons why you and I had the recording time that we did is it's just after my daughter's bedtime. I will not have anything booked ever between 6:30 and 8:00 at [00:48:01] night.
Eric: Yeah.
Tyler: That's just not, that's a non-negotiable. And so, finding those non-negotiables and structuring our days in a way that serves us so that we always have the time to do the things that matter. You'd be surprised at how much you can get done in a day, and I know it because when I don't do it, my days are disasters. And I go, well, what happened? Like, how did that not work? Because I didn't prioritize the things that were important to do.
Eric: Yeah. And that, you know, visually thinking of that device or whatever, you know, the jar that the professor brings in you’re filling up with the big important things first, so that you aren't piling those bigger things on top of the smaller things, I mean, that I think it's a very great metaphor. I mean, I'm gonna have to look that up and see, you know, maybe where that originated and read more about that. But yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. I mean, it's having those non-negotiables I'm sure makes it a lot easier to fit in those side things. So if you're like, hey between 6:30 and 8:00, I’m not scheduling anything, because I know that's time that I spend with my daughter, [00:49:01] that's perfect because you're never going to allow that to you. There's never going to be something that up, that just pops up, that takes that time away, because you've already established that. So, I think myself having big aspirations of I want to, you know, maybe be in an executive leadership role someday, you know. I realize that I don't also want to just be like, working all weekend, every single weekend and stuff. So balancing, those types of things I mean, I guess that's why you might have to say no to some certain opportunities and connecting back to another point. That previous guest Janan Sarwar made, was when you say yes to something, you also have to say no to something else at some point. You know, you're not going to be able to say yes to everything. So yeah, appreciation. And that's how that really helps.
Tyler: Well and a great speaker that I know to Mark Groves. He said it once in a similar way, he said there's a, every once in a while you have to give somebody the gift of no. And it's a similar principle write that in order as you had pointed out to say, yes, to something, you have to say, no to something else. We, our life [00:50:01] is a series of choices. And by automating a lot of that, it makes my decision making easier. I just know that these are the things they get slotted in, and they're scheduled usually a month out in advance.
Even my social media posts, A. I don't like doing them. So I've actually had other people create my social media posts for me, and then I review them for QA and then schedule them out. So my posts done a month out in advance with, and so that I know that I'm dedicating this amount of time to social media. And then I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the month because it is not a golf ball, or is it a pebble. It is definitely sand. And so I'm just, I just need to fill up around all the things that are important. So that's why I've been scheduling out my social media post for a little bit now, just because it makes it so much easier.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, that's really good point. I've tried to do that as well. And you mentioned 75 Hard. So Andy Frisella. Podcast RealAF and MFCEO. [00:51:01] I'm a big fan of his I'm sure you are as well. I mean if you did 75 Hard that's quite a grueling thing man. I haven't tried that yet. What’d you think?
Tyler: It was the greatest mental challenge disguised as a physical challenge that I've ever done and ironically because I do cold showers already, I've actually done the other version of 75 hard, which is adding in the cold shower every day.
Eric: Man. Dude.
Tyler: I already knocked it off. It felt a little like a cheat when they came out and said, oh, now you can do this other one. I'm like, yeah, I already did it. I don't need to do that. It was grueling. And the funny thing is, is for those who don't know what the 75 Hard Challenge is, for 75 days, you drink a gallon of water every day, you eat for your health, so you have to pick some form of not necessarily diet but you have to eat for your health and whatever you've decided you're going to stick with, you have to exercise twice a day for 45 minutes each. So a total of an hour and a half of exercise each day, but one of the exercises must be outside. [00:52:02]
I live in Canada, do the math. You also have to take a photograph of your progress every day. And all of the rest of that I was able to do, but if you miss anything in that time, like in the day, you don't check off any of those things, you have to start back at zero. Restart and then you do it for 75 Days and get a 75 Days streak. So of all of this stuff, the water, the exercise indoor or outdoor or both the, you know, eating and watching what I was, what I was eating. All of it. The thing that I'm oh and you have to read ten pages of nonfiction a day to, which is easy for me, I do it anyway.
But it's the picture. I would forget to take the damn selfie about every 10 days to the point where I actually had two as part of my non-negotiables set it in as an alarm on my phone, so that I would wake up, get my water, have my cold shower, [00:53:02] take a selfie because it was a thing that is just not on my head but it's part of the challenge. And if I didn't do it, I literally had to restart three times before I figured out, put it in my phone, but I loved it. The I again, 5’8” 140 pounds, I've been physically active most of my life, and I don't really put on weight so doing the eating for my health, finding a diet that actually worked for me, that was sustainable for the amount of activity that I then increased to was actually the hardest part because most people have to restrict what they were eating. I had to increase my dietary intake for the 75 Days which I found incredibly difficult.
So the eating for the health part and the selfie were the two hardest parts for me. But the rest of it, I didn't honestly didn't really blink. I love doing it. And but for the selfie part, I'm essentially continuing on with 75 Hard [00:54:02] and it's just kind of integrate into the day.
Eric: Doing that every day. Yeah, that's what a funny piece of it to miss, like that selfie. Like you've done all of the hard grueling work. I mean, just taking a pic just doing that like.
Tyler: You have no idea how angry you are at yourself the next morning, when you wake up and go ah selfie!
Eric: Yeah.
Tyler: I ran in -30 weather to have to restart again because I didn't take a picture of it, how dumb?
Eric: Yeah, I've been trying to get Frisella on the show actually. He just he recently opened up on his website he’s taking requests to come on other people shows his, you know, his podcast, and I'll link all this in the, in the description, the show here for you all. I mean, to get to 75 Hard and A. to get to Tyler's website in which you can get his book, we’ll access everything like that will be in the show notes, but yeah, you do, you know, Andy personally.
Tyler: No, no, but I would love to, I would love to just be able to sit down. There's three people who if I could, I want to just sit down [00:55:02] for an hour and just riff with, it's him, Joe Rogan and Dave Grohl, if I could pick those three people's minds, and then if I could have a bonus fourth it would probably be Tim Ferriss.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah. Tim's, another guy doing a podcast, you know, similar to what I'm trying to do. I mean Tim Ferriss when I first started this it's like that dude’s, the pinnacle. I mean that he's literally, I'm have his book on my nightstand of you know, Tools of Titans. So it's yeah, he's a great guy.
Tyler: Yeah. 4-Hour Workweek, inspired me to walk away from my 9-to-5 engineering job and pursue what I'm doing right now. A lot of the stuff that I've done came directly from just following his advice, and so far, it hasn't steered me wrong. So I owe Tim a big thanks. So to be able to meet him in person and shake his hand and say, thank you. And this is again it's those ripple things, right? Why am I doing what I'm doing?
Because if I can inspire somebody to do and stand up and do the thing that [00:56:02] they're really destined to do that has impact, think of the number of people that Tim Ferriss just by writing that book was able to inspire to just think differently and walk away or what Andy’s done with promoting people to because they think they're doing this physical challenge, again it’s they think it's a physical challenge but really, it's a mental challenge. And if you can overcome, if you can get up in the morning and be like, what's the weather like?
Ah, I've got to figure out how to exercise for 45 minutes in this, you know, sleet, snow, rain, sunshine. Some people think that the, the cold was the hard, actually, I found working out when it was you know, in the mid 80s, low 90s with the sun beating down on you was actually the harder part. You know, I had to figure out where can I find shade?
Eric: Yeah.
Tyler: To be able to do this.
Eric: Yeah, you can layer up when it's cold, but I mean at some point you could run but no shirt on. I guess that's the best you can do. I mean you can carry water with you. I mean you're pretty limited in that way. [00:57:02]
Tyler: Yeah.
Eric: And on the topic Dave Grohl, I actually think you might find this interesting. The first band I ever saw in concert was the Foo Fighters.
Tyler: Yeah.
Eric: So not his first thing obviously, but I mean it as a drummer, you know, kind of a really early stage drummer at that point it was like, wow the mean the lead singer of the Foo Fighters at that point. But you know, his background as a drummer and it's, he's an incredible individual.
Tyler: Yeah, I used to put on Nevermind in the studio and that was how I learn to drum, you know, I think every drummer at some point has tried to do the riff from Smells Like Teen Spirit. I there's actually YouTube video that I play probably once a month when I'm practicing on the kit, that breaks you through five different ways to play it. So, like the cheater way. And then the, you know, it builds up on levels until you doing it the way that Grohl does. And I mean, and that dude hits hard too.
Eric: Yeah.
Tyler: And technical oh. I just I love watching him. I just I think he's just an incredible human being nevermind musician or drummer, [00:58:02] right? Because I mean, he's all round and that first Foo Fighters album he did all himself.
Eric: Yeah.
Tyler: Right? That's the think what people forget that the band didn't exist when the first album was made. He then found musicians who could duplicate the sound that he did as a cathartic healing after Kurt’s passing. So that to me is, you know, I just, I am very much idolize the man and one of the things that I like to do, whenever I have an idol is go well, where are my similarities and where my differences?
Because I can't, Keep them on a pedestal and I think one of the fastest ways to do that is to meet people in person. So Dave, if you're listening, my name is Sean Tyler Foley. You can reach me at SeanTylerFoley.com. Hit contact me that'll be my direct email. And let's, let's jam my friend, right Dave, you're listening right Dave?
Eric: Man that would be incredible, maybe The Eric Mueller Show will get big enough. Maybe, maybe we'll be on that level where you know, this, that that's the one cool thing about this is this episode [00:59:02] it's going to be, it's going to be out there forever.
Tyler: Yup.
Eric: Til I take down that RSS feed which is not going to happen. But well Tyler man. Hey, thank you so much for spending some time with us for dropping your knowledge in regards to audience building and speaking and definitely check out the show notes, those of you listening because I will link directly to his book and where to access that also link his website where you can get in contact with him and, and really, yeah, I mean, Tyler, thank you so much, man. Appreciate you spending the time coming on The Eric Mueller Show to be interviewed.
Tyler: Eric, it was a joy and a pleasure and if there's anything else that I can do to serve you or your audience, you just reach out at any point and I'll be there.
Eric: You're the man, dude.
[EDM music fades-in, plays and then fades-out]
Voice audio: Written, produced and edited by Eric R. Mueller
EDM music: Produced and edited by Eric R. Mueller