Interview With Dr. Tracey C. Jones!
It’s our responsibility to share knowledge as fellow human beings. But we’re not responsible for their actions. In this episode, Dr. Tracey Jones comes in as a guest in Ken Walls’ podcast, Breakthrough Walls. Ken is the CEO of Client Solution Innovations, which aims to “provide leading-edge technology and creative strategy to deliver measurable results to clients.” Dr. Tracey shares with Ken how her father, Charlie Tremendous Jones, used to say “you can lead a horse to the water but you can’t make him drink.” Join in the conversation to gain wise insights on leadership. You wouldn't want to miss this episode!
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Watch the episode here:
Interview With Dr. Tracey C. Jones!
I have a literal rockstar on the show. I have the one and only Dr. Tracey Jones. Share it out to all of your social media.
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I am so excited about my guest. Let me bring Dr. Tracey Jones on. Dr. Jones, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Ken. It is a tremendous honor to be here and with all your guests.
I have heard Jeffrey Gitomer talk about your father, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. I'm not sure I've ever had a conversation with Jeffrey where your dad's name didn't come up.
I believe it. He loved my father and Jeffrey was the Jewish son my dad never had. They got each other. Since my father went to heaven in 2008, Jeffrey has been such an incredible part of the legacy. He's my brother too.
We love Jeffrey, for sure. Mark Victor Hansen introduced you and me.
Who doesn’t love Mark Victor Hansen? Just even knowing him, it's like when the water rises, all boats rise. He will connect you with so many people. For the readers out there, that's how we connected. Half the people that I talked to and have on my show, they're like, “How did you meet Mark Victor Hansen and connected with him?" He loved my father too. He was telling me they sold millions and millions of books from the stage, good times.
I forget the exact story, but Mark had a story about your dad saying, “Don't tell my wife but I'm selling these books at half price,” or something like that. I forget what it was. It was a funny story. Tracey, you have had an amazing and tremendous life, some might say. I’d love to hear how it all started for you. Where were you born and raised?
I was born and raised in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, which is right outside of Harrisburg. For those of you not familiar with Pennsylvania, it’s halfway in between Philly, Pittsburgh, and the Southern part of the state. My dad was from Alabama, a Southern gentleman, and my mother was from Lancaster, Gloria Burkhart, sweet little Mennonite, beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed. I always thought of them as Ron and Nancy Reagan. Dad was the tall dark one and Gloria with the Nancy petite little blonde-haired and blue-eyed.
Charles moved up here to Lancaster and crashed at Franklin and Marshall prom. My dad flunked out of school in the eighth grade. He was a tough tall scrapper and asked my mother to dance. Thirteen weeks later, they eloped. She paid for the $2 wedding certificate. He didn't have a car and he didn’t have a ring but she was in love with him. He married a Yankee woman and had six Yankee babies. That's where I grew up. They moved. I'm the fifth out of six. The first four grew up in Lancaster and outside of Camp Hill. He was moved to New York. They moved him from a district office in Lancaster over to Harrisburg. That's where my little sister and I were born, outside of Harrisburg.
He had no money when he got married?
No money. He did talk about a little love of God that came out. He's like, “Gloria, we eloped. I didn't have any money. I didn't have a job. Ie didn't have a car. I didn’t have the $2 for the marriage license and she said yes.” I’ll always remember my mother. She passed in 2019. I moved back to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania after my father immigrated to heaven because that's a whole other story. I got to spend time with my mom and I would ask her, “What was it like?”
I left Pennsylvania after high school. I'm like, “I'm out. I got to carve my own way. I got to earn my own stripes.” She always says, “Your father, I was just along for the ride and what a ride it was." It was a beautiful partnership. She believed in him. As a young boy from a broken home, he always says he didn't even believe in love and God. He didn't believe in anything. Gloria was a good woman that saw something in him and the rest is history.
It makes me a little bit sad. Knowing Jeffrey for the years that we've been friends, I've heard his name a lot. I never took the time to go to YouTube and look him up until you and I talked on the phone. You saw the post I did. I love Zig Ziglar. I'm friends with Tom, Julie and Cindy. Julie is a client of mine. I've always loved Zig and Jim Rohn. I watched your dad and I was like, “You've got to be kidding me. He's legendary.”
He is and they counted him as one of the top 25 legends of personal development. He had a quality about him. It’s okay. It’s better late than never, Ken. I'm glad that you did that. Somebody called me. I saw them working through my website and I talked to them. I called them up because they’re new people and I'm like, “How did you find us?” They're like, “We were listening to a motivational video on YouTube. The gentleman called out your dad. We had never heard of him before. We went over to Tremendous Life Books YouTube channel.” They ordered every one of his books and every one of my books. I'm like, “This is interesting.” I don't know this name.
Just like you, there are people who are still finding out. That's why it's so wonderful. We had all his stuff archived and digitized, but I'm going to have people send me stuff that they found from an old cassette that they had sent over. He was unprecedented in his delivery and how it resonated with the audience and his pragmatic wisdom. He was a star like no other, for sure.
Also, his humor. At one point, he said something about, "Why do you have six kids?” or something. Didn't he say, “Because my wife hates kids?”
He was always so funny and teasing Gloria and all his mother-in-law jokes, his political jokes. He has a joke book. He loved humor. He talks about that's one of the therapies in life. As speakers, humor is the greatest way to get people to identify with you. If I tell you something and you brought it on yourself, you're going to want to punch me. If I tell you a story, identify with you and get you laughing, then you want to hug me. He's like, “We're not comedians, but we're humorous and that life has to have that. It's so bittersweet anyways. We have to find the joy even in the tough stuff.” There was nobody that didn't like him because he came from some difficult, tough things.
He was phenomenal. I've seen some of your talks as well. The apple did not fall far from the tree.
Share Knowledge : Do you want to be like everyone else? Why would you want to be that?
Thanks, Ken. That means the world to me.
You're incredible. I remember when I had Julie and Tom Ziglar on the show. I can't imagine what it's like being raised in the shadows of somebody like Charlie “Tremendous” Jones. What was it like for you growing up as a kid? Was it always funny?
I tell people it was like a cross between bootcamp and a sitcom. It was hysterical. There was never anything normal. Some people were like, “I want to be like everybody else.” I'm like, “Why would you want to be that?” He was always so out there, and you knew whenever he walked into a room or someone passed within 50 feet of him, there was going to be some crazy wild interaction. As a teenager, I abhorred this because as a teenager, you adjust while your parents could be normal and not weird. You don't get how being an odd duck is such a cool thing.
I remember, I’d be like, “Dad, can you please be normal? Just this once.” We were going in for PTA Conference and I'm like, “Please be normal once.” He's like, “What do you mean?” For him, normal was tremendous. We were always very disciplined, though, because he was a hard taskmaster. It wasn't all joking. You'd laugh, but then you get right back in the game, then you're crying and then you're laughing and then you're crying. It's not bipolar. It's light because light has these pendulums.
I can remember when I was a little girl, he had me read How to Win Friends and Influence People and do a book report before The Poky Little Puppy. We’re at the dinner table and as a kindergartener, “What do you want to do with your life?” I'm like, “I want to make it to the first grade.” He imprinted on us at an early age to always be growing, learning, embracing failure because that gets you to the next level. I got to tell you something. He says he never meddled in our lives until which we would always laugh and go, “Okay, whatever.”
He's like, "I would do a little spiritual meddling." One time he signed up my little sister and me for charm school as if we're not charming enough. I was a tomboy. This is back in the '70s. We didn't even have blow dryers. We're little tomboys. I still am. I'm from Pennsylvania. I'm a redneck Pennsyltuckyian too. This is who I am and I love it. He signed my little sister and me up for charm school. I think I was in 10th or 11th grade at the time. My little sister was three years younger.
He's like, “I'm not going to tell you what's going on,” but he dropped us off at the mall and we found out this was charm school. We're not debutantes. We didn't play with dolls and were always out digging and playing with the boys in the neighborhood and that's how it was. I’m like, “I'll learn how to try and walk and not chew gum and cross my legs the right way like a cotillion,” which is a beautiful thing. We would go to it and then we found out at the end, there was going to be this fashion show in the mall because that was all the craze back then. We had to walk in and I'm like, “I can't do this.”
People are going to think I wasn't cool. I was like the biggest dork nerd. I don't like how to date until I was like twenty. I was like, “I can't do this.” I don't even have credibility. What little bit I have will be shot. My little sister and I would get dropped off at the mall. We'd run around and shop at Spencer's or whatever weird store was there. Finally, we knew when the fashion show was coming. We had to break the news to our mom. We told a little white lie.
We said, “The girls were mean to us and so we opted out.” My mom's like, “I'll let your father know.” A couple of months go by and we're like, “We dodged that bullet. Everything's cool." My dad finally asked, “Whatever happened with that?” Gloria explained, “The girls did it but it wasn't their thing.” My dad was like, “Okay.” Nothing was said, but growing up as a young woman, whenever I would meet, be it talking to a gentleman or whatever, my father would immediately come over, interject and say, “Did she tell you that she flunked out of charm school?”
I was like, “What’s wrong with you? I didn't flunk. I quit.” He's like, “I wish you’d quit.” I said to him, “Why did you do that? I am cool enough. We had good self-esteem. We didn't have to be all dolled up.” When you're an adult, let a kid be dirty, grubby and be a kid. He's like, “I thought you guys would like this.“ I’m like, “You had us traveling all over the world, seeing all kinds of things.” It was sweet of him. He would never do that. “Did she tell you she flunked out of charm school?” That was the line everybody got. He was crazy.
We always worked. Our summers were getting packed up in a VW bus with a popup trailer, six kids, two adults, and a ton of books. We moved from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, out to Knott's Berry Farm in California to the Grand Canyon, down to Mexico City, Mexico, with books. Charles would speak and we would work the book table. Our summers were working but fun. I always grew up with this blend. Work and fun, you don't separate the two. You don't take a vacation just to vacation because you're still connecting and working. It was brilliant. I'm thankful for that because my work life and my personal life are very dichotomous. I always knew you had to blend them. It was an important truth as a young person growing up.
Joan is in the Harrisburg area. Isn't Don Shin over there too? Don's a good buddy of mine. He and I are in Jeffrey's mastermind together.
He brought Jeffrey in several years ago. He’s been a dear friend of the family for many years.
He's such a good man. I love that guy. It’s crazy but fun and it sounds like 100 miles an hour.
Share Knowledge : Work and fun, you don't separate the two. You don't take vacation just to vacation because you're still connecting and working.
There were a lot of downtimes. You were working. There were no summer vacations where you went to work and camp. You got a job. He took the TVs out of the house and got rid of them all when we were in high school. He's like, “If you've got downtime, you can be volunteering, working or reading. You're not watching this crap on TV.” That was back when there was nothing bad on TV but Donnie and Marie and comedies. It's trash in, trash out. I'm like, “Lord have mercy,” but he was very hands-on about making sure that when we left the nest, we were going to be grounded in the right place. He knew the world was going to start taking swipes at us, and trying to blindside us and con us into a bunch of trash and nonsense.
The other thing he always told me was, “Tracey, you have to go out and earn your own stripes. You can't live in my shadow.” I was always outside playing. I couldn't stand it. I'll read a book in the field because I was fuming that there was no TV, or I still get down to my friend's house to watch Buck Rogers in the 20th Century or something like that.
Leave it to Beaver. That would be so difficult, having a father so big. I watched that thing that I posted and I was like, “He's brave,” because he said some things from that stage talking about being conservative. He said a lot of things from that stage that if you did that now, I don't know.
He had so many people from political, religious and different groups because his point was, “This is my worldview and my grounding. You got to know where you stand.” He was never in your face. He has one line about, “I know that liberals lie just like conservatives lie. It's just that I like the conservative's lies a little bit more.” You're like, “He knows.” He would never vilify what you were about. He’s like, “You may not believe in God, but then you got to go all-in with that belief. I am all in with the belief that there is God." He talks about that extensively. I'm like, “Dad, how can you keep talking about God? These were secular.” He's like, “They don't have to ask me back.”
When you're talking about motivation and if you have your faith as a cornerstone for that, for you do not share that, you would be completely disingenuous. People can go, “I have a lot of friends that are atheist,” and go, “That's fine.” They know where I am. They know where my light is, where I attach to, and that's okay. They know that, but his point was always, “I got to let you know because you're looking at me and you want solutions from me.” As a researcher, he would fully disclose his researcher bias and say, “I'm a product of this and this is what I believe. This is going to code and contextualize everything that you're going to hear from my mouth,” which is progressive in a lot of ways.
I have a hard time remembering exactly what somebody says, but I always remember how I felt. I know that also goes back to that old cliché but I do. I can read a book and not recall a lot of it. I can remember like, “That made me feel like this and this is the action I took as a result.” It was a phenomenal thing that I posted on Facebook. You ended up going to college. Where did you go?
I went to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs because he was like, “Earn your stripes.” I'm like, “I'm going into the military.” Part of that was my dad was such a patriot. He would always say, “I can write a book about what's wrong with America. I can write a library about what's right about America.” I used to think, “Whatever,” but having lived all over the world, there is no truer statement than that. I can always tell if somebody hasn't traveled by how they trash their own country. I'm like, “Okay.” Nobody on this planet is. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
He went down to New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, New Mexico to give a speech. He came back and there was a flyer laying on the kitchen table. He's like, “Tracey, these kids that go there are going to make something of themselves,” and then he walked away. That was me being the guinea pig. I'm looking at it and I'm like, “I want to go there.” I had traveled out West extensively. I love the West. I'm a cowgirl at heart. Dad was a cowboy in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado.
I had heard about Annapolis and West Point because they're close by to us. I've always loved space. I always wanted to be an astronaut. I'm watching Richard Branson and Elon Musk. I’m like, “I got to sell more books and I'm going to go into space.” I looked into that. I saw it was in Roswell, New Mexico. I applied for it. I went to school down there on a thing where he said that those kids are going to make something of their life. I never knew exactly what I wanted to do. I'm more of a "life is a journey" person. I always wanted to make an impact, be purposeful, live a life of significance and help other people.
I went from there and then in the process, after I graduated from there, they said to me, “Do you want to go to Annapolis or West Point?” I'm like, “I like the West.” Isn't that great? I love my country but I also am digging this part of the country. They’re like, “The Air Force Academy has been around and they're open to women now the past X number of years. Would you like to get in there?” I'm like, “Yeah, let's see that.” I had this gentleman, Major John Shaper, that got made an appointment to the Air Force Academy, and I went to the Air Force Academy.
I showed up there. My advice to people is we're all about setting goals. Even if you are looking for opportunities or you haven't outlined your vision board exactly where you want to be, because I hadn't even thought about this. If you keep open to opportunities and say yes to things and I thought, “I don't know if I can make it.” I liked my year at Niemi. It was a great year but this was four years in a military academy. I'm not sure if I can do it but I'm at least going to try.
The one thing I learned was regret is worse than failure. I would rather try and fail than regret because regrets, you don't come back from. Failures, you bounce back from, so that was that. I went and got into the military and the Air Force. I got commissioned in 1988. It was off to Shaw Air Force Base, worked on fighter jets, F15s and F16s. I was an aircraft maintenance officer, Operation Desert Shield, Desert Storm, the Bosnian War. I lived in Italy, Turkey, Germany, RAF Lakenheath. I came back to the States in 2000 and got out. I moved to Austin, Texas, Keep Austin Weird. I went into high tech with applied materials and did five years there. I went to St. Louis and worked for Northrop Grumman and the National Security Agency. I like trying new things.
Did you work with the NSA?
Yeah. In St. Louis, they had a National Geospatial Intelligence Agency West. There’s one on the East Coast for Defense. It has moved since then, but they are a big mapping agency. I'm analytical by nature. I like structures and rules. I'm a rule abider. When the opportunity came to move back, I ran a small niche publishing company. I had to dig deep and see if I had my right brain, my creative side. That's where I've been.
Share Knowledge: We need to have the external lifelines and the support network to make things happen because we can't do it on our own.
My brother-in-law flew F4s in the Air Force and my nephew’s son flew F16s. He now flies for Delta. Talk about a night and day difference.
They were just transitioning out of the F4s and Vipers. People were in tears. We had the Warthogs, the A10s there, my favorite plane. That was an end of an era when we said goodbye to Warthogs.
I remember it was very loud. At what point did you get your PhD?
I got my PhD at the end of 2019. I'm back here. I'm in leadership. I noticed as I was out speaking that more and more people in the audience had a PhD. Since my undergrad, I got an MBA because I thought, “I'm eventually going to be running this business. I want to know how the mechanics of finance. I don’t want to run out of money and know-how to do the accounting and the business side of it" In 2015, I started the journey because I thought, “I pivoted on pain.” We're supposed to pivot on purpose, but I had been running Tremendous Leadership for about six years and it was not happening. I was feeling lost. For many reasons, I'm getting in my own way.
I thought, “I’m going to back to school and get a PhD because if I'm going to be a leadership expert, I should have the terminal degree in leadership. At least I'll get a book out of it.” I'll have to write my book, which I did. I went back and the most unbelievable thing happened. I understood the science behind all those many years of trying to lead people good, bad and ugly, why certain things worked and certain things didn't work. I understood the grounded literature and the grounded research of the science of leadership.
We all know esoteric poetry but there's a lot of plumbing. That was so cool to go back and go, “Fifteen years ago, when I came in and tried to enact this change as a newbie, this is why it didn't take or this is why it was time to leave that organization.” It was a phenomenal experience. I learned so much because people were like, “You've already written seven books on leadership and worked in it for twenty years.” I'm like, “I have barely scratched the surface.” With leadership, it's like life. The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know, and the more you want to learn. I'm so thankful for that experience.
I told somebody, “I think I'm like most humans. I vacillate between one day I know everything, the next day I know nothing.” When it comes to the leadership genre, what is your target audience? Is it big corporations? Is it small mom-and-pop businesses?
Big corporations are phenomenal. I've worked in Fortune 100 companies. I've worked in the biggest bureaucracies all over the world. The issue with bureaucracies is the bigger they get, the more bloated they get, the more entrenched they get. It's like the parable of the mustard seed. It grows up and beautiful things nest in it. A lot of trash does too. I have found that with most bureaucracies, people tend to be there punching the clock until they retire. We call them Naval Gazers. Are they alive? Can they fog a mirror? That’s what we do in the military too. I resonate with very entrepreneurial groups that are realizing that the best is yet to come. I finally had to realize in my leadership PhD that there is no such thing as leadership without individual motivation. I can't motivate you.
My dad would always tell me that. I'm like, “This is what you're doing for people.” He's like, “No, I'm sparking them. I'm igniting something dormant in them. “ If that person or that organization will not allow themselves to be open to being developed or realize that maybe there are things that they need to do." Everybody in the bureaucracies is tied to the bottom line. Their focus is not on development and training. I don't care how much money. It's on the bottom line and shareholders. I get it. That's their goal in life. Money makes the world go round.
Our target market is people that, as my dad would say, “Work for a living like commissions. You don't earn, you don't eat. What a beautiful way to live.” They're industrious, so real estate, life insurance, direct marketing, any kind of small and mid-sized businesses that are looking to grow and develop their people, and that have a purpose behind them. They’re mission-driven but for-profit. We have a lot of nonprofits too that are customers as well, but very entrepreneurial spirit and realizing that the mighty dollar is, "Sorry, taskmaster," unless it's tied to the greater good that you can do with the righteous use of wealth. That's who we resonate with.
I've always said and proven myself to be wrong about this. As a business owner and leader for many years, I think I have an issue with always seeing the good in everything and everyone. I try to find the good in everyone. I don't believe that people are lazy. You could see the laziest person on the planet. I would look at them and go, "They're not lazy. They're lacking direction and a major definite purpose in life." That's what they're lacking. They don't have the drive to get them there because they don't have anything to go toward. What do you think about that?
Let me ask you this. If you came up to them and you were God and knew exactly what you wanted them to do and could find them the provisions, do you think that they would do it?
If I was God?
Do you think that they would get up off their duffs, take action and do it?
Share Knowledge: Tell people you're not going to make it.
I don't know.
That is the thing. Thank you for being honest, Ken. You and I, why doesn't all the world read tremendous books? All the answers to all the problems in all the world are there in these tremendous books, but why don't people do it? They do not want to accept ownership for what's going on. It's so much easier to blame the government, religion, history or my parents. That is such a lazy way of doing things. We provide all of the great insights to people. We are responsible to people. You share knowledge with people. That is our responsibility as fellow human beings, but I'm not responsible for you. Bob Burg taught me that.
You then have to pick it up, put it in your heart and do the work. My dad would tell me, “You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.” I have friends that have literally died because they would not stop doing what they knew was going to cost them. There's a great article on Forbes called Change or Die. It came out in 2019. You can get the PDF of it. It's a study of a group of people that have chronic heart disease and have to have heart valve replacements. They come back afterward and say, “Now that we've done this, if you don't change your unhealthy living ways, you're going to die.” Out of nine of those people, how many do you think changed?
This is so sad to say this. I'm going to go with one.
Correct. Why is that? They were giving everything they need, coaches, you name it. If you don't intrinsically light your own fuse, it's your choice.
Let's banter with this for a moment. What you're saying is most people won't change. I'm a recovered alcoholic. I'm nineteen years sober by the grace of God and a lot of hard work, but I changed.
You can change. I can't change you. Only you can change yourself. I have a brother that died from alcoholism. Why? He could not change. People can change. I reclaimed my health a few years ago. I was on the road to demise. I cleaned up my act too. I had a lot of bad habits. Only I could do that for myself. People were crying over me. People were saying, “I'll support you. I'll do this for you,” until you make the decision. People can only change if they themselves want to do it. It's in the Bible too. Jesus even said, “The way to heaven is broad. Very few are going to make it in.” What does that mean? It means most of us are not going to care enough to yield and submit to our own desires to live the way we need to live. That's in our nature.
If we don’t stop sharing, it doesn't mean that we don't stop pouring into people. Before the spark went off in you, it took years of you hearing things, knowing in the back of your mind, "This is not going to end well.” Me too. I kept thinking, “Tracey, you got to get it together." Finally, in 2015, I was like, “I'm in such a place of pain, spiritually, mentally, financially, physically and health-wise. I'm done.” I started pulling it all together, but the only person that could do that for me was me.
If you knew the answer to what I'm getting ready for, you'd be the wealthiest woman on the planet and you would not be available. Is there a way to shock people into waking up? I know that I can't change you. I've sponsored your brother in the fellowship of recovery. Not literally but men like your brother and end up at their funerals because they couldn't stop. I always was like, “Why didn’t you knew?”
Especially from somebody like you or me that has made that, I'll say a part of it is grace, by the grace of God. You've got to believe that there are miracles and grace because if you don't, then honestly, what does it matter if people die? They're just going back to the dustbin. I don't mean to be crude or rude. We're all animals. If my dog gets hit on the side of the road, that hurts. If people die, it's done. Let's get our heads around the fact that we are more than just cells and sinews walking around. There's this spiritual element that you hit the nail on the head. When we don't have our purpose, we fall into a tremendous dis-ease with ourselves that then becomes a disease. We mask it with booze, alcoholism, debt or negativity or whatever.
All you can do is get with somebody. Either it hit rock bottom but keep finding ways to give them that singularity. There are two real reasons why people change that I found in my dissertation. These two things have to happen before anybody makes any change. Number one, you have to see value in it. The person that can't stop drinking, they have to see value in living a sober life. A lot of people don't want that, “I'm going to lose my friends. What am I going to do? I like drinking.” I get that whole thing, “I'm in and out of the bar. I'm going to have to get all new friends."
Number two, they have to have a reasonable expectation of success. That's where your advocates come in and your resources. That's where I bring my intentionality to it, that I want to change. You have to have the external lifelines and the support network to make it happen because we can't do it on our own. We're not meant to do it on our own, spiritually or from an evolutionary standpoint. A lone sheep is a dead sheep. It's this balance up, but you can have all the externals in the world, sponsorships, all those things. I work with my brother. I said, “Come and be with me, come work with me. I'll take care of you.” All the lifelines were there but until he saw value in wanting to change, it can't happen.
The other thing is somebody can want to change, but if they don't have that support network, they're going to hit wall after wall and get kicked back. You have to have these two things. As for shocking, I don't know. There's something that all of a sudden, made you finally stop. What was the spark where you finally said, that's my last drink? I'll never take another one.
For the record, I didn't say that. I thought I was going to go learn how to drink like a normal person. I'm going to tell you because people are like, “You need to get rid of your ego. It's an acronym for Edging God Out.” I disagree with that. I'm like, “Why?” My ego saved my life. It's a long story I won't go into. Somebody that I not necessarily respected on a high level but he was a friend. He said, “You're nothing but a worthless drunk. Everybody around here knows it. Why don't you go get some help?" He got up from the barstool in a very fancy upscale bar-restaurant and walked out.
Share Knowledge: We should always be suspicious of ourselves so we can have healthy self-confidence.
I was like, “I have a Mercedes sitting in the parking lot, and you're getting into your Toyota. Excuse me.” I'm sitting there. I swear it was like a light shining down out of heaven. I'm sitting there and I'm looking around at the people in this restaurant. I was like, “I hope they didn't hear what he said. What if they did? I feel like everybody's looking at me right now. I'm an alcoholic.” That was it. I got up and walked out.
I got to tell you something and my dad would do that to people. I have men still call me and say, “I was about ready to give up my marriage, quit my job, jump off the bridge and your father called me. He yelled at me. He made me cry. I'm so thankful for that.” Tough love is still love. I know a couple of people that grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and said, “Who the hell do you think you are?” I was like, “Holy crap.” Fear is not a bad thing. I'm glad that sometimes it comes to us, but that's where you have to be with people that are going to speak the truth to you.
Remember, half the time, Jesus was loving and the other half, he was rebuking, calling people broods or vipers and stuff like that. He's going to tables, telling people, “You're not going to make it.” You got to have those people that are going to call it, but thank God that you were open to listening and into absorbing that, and that didn't make you more entrenched. It gave you pause to go, “It is who I am.” It's so hard for us to see who we are.
It bruised my ego. I say that all the time. I had been through marriages and many relationships, women saying, “You need to do something about your drinking.” I was like, “You're the reason I drink so much.” They would leave.
Somebody different says it, and we're like, “Fuck, I need to get to work on that.” That happens but that was that spark that you finally said, “I'm done.”
You have done well now with what you're doing.
I'm blessed in that we still have no debt. We have a tremendous group of unbelievable fans, and I have enough every month to pay all the bills. I get to go to great places and see amazing things.
I want to ask you, and this is going to be 100% your opinion based on whatever you want to base it on, but it's your opinion. What do you think holds people back from financial success and freedom in life? I think these are related.
There are two things that do that. You talk about mastermind groups so I'll hit on that, but one of my favorite books is Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. He hits on two of the greatest things in there. The number one thing that holds people back from anything is their thoughts. "I wonder if it's my feelings from my upbringing." No. Here's the process and this is a science. First comes thoughts, then come feelings, then comes behaviors. If you're feeling bad, you got to go back up in here and fix what's ever going on up here. The problem is your conscious mind is so burdened and drugged down by trash and pollution, people were saying bad things to you. You’re seeing things and getting your feelings hurt.
Our own biases, assumptions and blind spots, we create this story that our conscious mind grabs onto and keeps playing again and again. One of the things that Napoleon Hill talks about is your subconscious. A dear friend of mine shared this with me. He calls it an exercise at night. He called it the Magic Door. I call it the Divine Door. Before you go to bed at night, when your subconscious is about to whisk away because inside of you is everything you need. The God seed, all the answers to everything you've been looking for and your true purpose. You don't have to go outside looking for it. You have to peel off all the layers of grime and negativity and dig in there.
That's why we have conversations like this. That's why we read great books, not to become smarter but to unlock the intrinsic greatness that is within all of us. Before you go to bed, I want you to think about tomorrow in terms of, if tomorrow was the greatest day of your life, what would it look like? Start visualizing and thinking about it. See yourself already there. As a result, rather than going to bed, I spun up thinking about all the trash I didn't get done, and all the idiots that cut you off in traffic, you worry. Guess what happens to your subconscious all night? It's grinding. It's thrashing. You're having nightmares. You're restless. Your soul cannot rejuvenate.
If you think about, “No, this is what tomorrow is going to look like,” you cannot believe it. You go to bed and you'll wake up like it won't be an alarm clock. It'll be an opportunity clock. You're like, “I got to get to work doing this.” First of all, you got to clear it up right here. We talked about this. The external is the mastermind group. The internal and intrinsic or the internal locus of control is you and your thoughts, As A Man Thinketh, and everything. Your greatest friend is right up here.
We have this little reptilian brain, which causes us to fight or flight or assigned BS descriptions to things happening, the conclusion or a pity party. This frontal lobe cortex, which is billions of neurons that we haven't even dialed into. God gave us the mind of grace. How about if we start trying to plug in? My favorite verse is Romans 12:2 where Paul says, "Don't be conformed to the world but be renewed." Get your mind renewed. That will start emanating and pouring out. You'll start drawing things that coalesce and resonate with that.
The second part is the mastermind group. You've hit on it. You can't get it right without the right people. You need to start surrounding yourself now, be it mastermind groups, mentors, confidantes, advocates or benefactors. They need to be right there to guide you to be sounding boards, preferably somebody outside your family and your organization because you're going to need to talk freely. You have that and you let them share the burden. Lena Horne has a great quote, “It's not the load that breaks you down. It's how you carry it.” Let people help you share the burden, and then you do your part with your clarity. You go to your group and say, “I need your support” because they're going to be opening the doors.
They're going to be making you question yourself. We should always be suspicious of ourselves. Go for healthy self-confidence but also know that out of 100 ideas, 99 of them are probably crap. I need to vet myself. I can't do that by myself. That's where I have my mastermind group or somebody at the bar that says something punchy to me. Rather than deflecting that thought, you allowed that thought to go right here and plant right here. That bored out in your behaviors. Don't assemble people if you're not going to authorize them to speak truth into you, because they're going to be like, “Forget about it. I don't have time for this.” I'm going to go, “Don't cast your curls amongst just one.” Be open to absorbing.
I should have asked you this before we got started, we were talking about so many things. What is your website address?
TremendousLeadership.com is the website. That's where all the books are. If you sign up for our email list, you get two free weeks of eBooks, some Tremendous eBooks. You can start reprogramming your brain right away with, As A Man Thinketh, Acres of Diamonds, A Message to Garcia. Our podcast is on there. All our Tremendous books. SPARK is on there and my dad's stuff, and www.TraceyCJones.com is my speaking website where I have my podcast interviews, courses and all kinds of different things.
One last very quick question. I'm not sure if you'll be able to answer this quickly but we can try. Everybody make sure you go visit those websites and sign up for everything unless you want to stay where you are, then don't sign up for anything. 2020 was an odd year for a lot of people and a friend of mine runs the suicide hotline for the state of Ohio. I know from a conversation that suicide skyrocketed worldwide. To somebody that might be reading this right now that may feel like they've tried everything and they can't figure it out. They're at the end of the rope. The knot they tied broke loose and they're slipping. What do you say to them to help them get through to the next moment?
What I have to say to them is that the Creator of the universe loves you completely. You are already counted completely worthy and whole. He is waiting to bring you into the fold to get your internal inheritance. When you realize that and understand that the deep, unbounded, limitless love of God, you will find your purpose and you will most of all be able to handle any hardship that comes your way because you know that you have the Creator of the cosmos that you are in the palm of His hand.
No matter what happens, I don't care if there are a million pandemics, I rest assured knowing that whatever happens to this body, it doesn't matter. Absent with the body, I'll go to heaven in a second. My dad, mom and brother are up there. I cannot wait to get up there. We're going to be having great conversations like this. There is no love outside of the love of God. We can't love each other without the love of God. Yield yourself, be open to exploring, feeling and experiencing the love of God. That's what I would say.
Dr. Tracey Jones, you are amazing. You're a rockstar. I love your energy and message. Everybody needs to make sure that they follow you everywhere on Facebook, Instagram, wherever. Make sure you follow Dr. Tracey C. Jones. Look her up and follow her everywhere. Thank you so much, Tracey. I appreciate you being here.
Ken, this was exciting. It's great to get to know you.
Thank you, everybody, for reading and sharing this out. See you later.
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