INTERVIEW | Make Money by Turning Setbacks Into Comebacks with Tim Storey

0:00You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast. What's our mission? Help you make more money on this episode of the show. I have a friend of mine. His name is Tim's story. Tim's an acclaimed author, speaker, and executive coach known for inspiring and motivating people of all walks of life from entertainment executives, celebrities, athletes to adults, and children in the most deprived neighborhoods in the world. Tim's traveled to 75 countries and spoken to millions of people, worked with people like Oprah, Steve Harvey, Robert Downey Jr., you name them. Tim has done something with them. It seems like so. This is also his second or third time on the show. I don't know. It's been quite a few times over the years to finish other or a few events and things like that. So I'm always happy to spend some more time with them. Tim, what's up, man? Welcome. And we are real friends. We are friends. That's true. Yeah, off camera, you. Tim, I appreciate you and all the work that you do in the world, man. Tell me what you got going on these days. What's new in the world of Tim's story? One of the things that I'm excited about,

1:00number one, I love this idea of Travis makes money. But one of the things I'm excited about at this stage of life, it's not like an age, but it's a stage, is I think that there's a lot of really good people, male and female that I coach, that they seem to be like stuck. They seem to be stuck. And they're almost like one step from something really good happening. But then they find themselves stuck and they don't know how to unlock themselves. So I've spent like a lot of years, actually, three decades, studying about how to unlock people, how to turn people's setbacks to come back. So I feel Travis, like my message of setback to come back, even the area of finance, is needed more than ever to get people unstuck. Yeah, yeah, no kidding. And you're one of the better communicators inside of that space as well, the way that you package and frame,

2:01the information actually is helpful to people. And still to this day, one of the best speakers I've seen on any business stage around the world. So I can imagine all the success on that as well. Let's talk a little bit more about this, the setback to come back thing. Because this is something that was sort of like personally meaningful to you when you first sort of discovered it back in the days, all right? Yeah, so actually, you know, that's amazing thing that way back in the late 80s is when I first started coming up with this message. And then I think it was around 1991 or 92 that my first book came out, it's time for your comeback. And what I found is a setback, watch this, it's so cool. To be set means to be locked, to be solidified, to be fixed. And so we can get locked in a lot of things, like our mindset, our physical body, our family challenges, our money challenges. So to be setback means literally to be locked back.

3:03Nobody wants to be locked backwards. And when most people have a setback, they usually sit in it or settle in it. And when you came up with this, was this something that you immediately started helping people with? Was it because you were a pastor at the time, is that right? Yeah, so my background is I have a doctorate in world religion and a master's in counseling. Okay, and got my background is I went to a Christian university slash seminary, but I went there to be a humanitarian like a cool mother Teresa, because that lady, you know, she changed people's lives. Or a Nelson Mandela. So what I was doing is I was speaking a lot in churches. And then I started seeing John Maxwell, who had also come from the ministry, he got into what we would have called at that point, the secular world, speaking to various companies and that.

4:04So I started doing that as well when I was only like 23, 24 years of age. Oh, wow. Okay. So who was like the first person that you really worked with in this new setback to come back that you that you that you looked at as like, we've got something we've got something here. This is something that can really truly help change people's lives. It was NFL players. What happened Travis is that when I was still in college, I created a curriculum on how to kind of step up and step into a better life. And that was based on the fact of me being from Compton, California, seven people in a two-bedroom apartment. And we were kind of like in a setback. So I wanted to help inner city kids. So I got a little bit bold one day. And I called up the Miami dolphins, found out some people that I can get in touch with. And I got three players that were very good players to say, Hey, young guy.

5:08Yeah, we're in. So I did something in in city Miami and I got three dolphins. And then did one in another city. I asked those dolphins, you know, any other NFL players in those areas. And then it just started building, building, building. And then I started getting like the mega stars of the NFL back in me up. And I was still young. I was still like a young guy. And so that's how it all started. And then I started then working with NFL players. Then the NFL started hiring me as a troubleshooter to help NFL players that were in trouble. Yeah. I mean, I had the biggest of the big and still do. But to think I was that young dealing with guys that I looked up to in the NFL. Did you have any sort of like imposter syndrome around the work that you were doing at that time? So I mean, I would say that most people would. But for me, I'm kind of nerdy.

6:08People don't know this side of me where I studied two hours a day, almost every day of my life. And there was a lady named Dr. Helen Mendez. And she taught at USC African American lady. I had heard about her. So I went after her. I just booked a counseling session with her because she did counseling like two days a week. I booked a counseling session with her. And I said, this is who I am. This is what I do. And she goes, I don't know why, but I totally love you. An older lady very established. And she's like, I totally love you. You're you're tenacious. She said, you know, there's there's something Tim that I'm working on right now with a inner circle that's going to come out later called listen to this life coaching. It's a true story. True story. She was one of the pioneers of life coaching. She said, I have this big manual. So why don't we kind of make this manual something that we can utilize for you and then

7:16curate your own manual out of the manual that I have. So we started working together for over 20 years. So she really, really helped my life as I moved in from the NFL and then started moving as you know, with all these movie stars. So the importance of having your own coach or mentor when you are yourself a coach and mentor. Yeah. So I do believe this, this guy coach Michael Bert says, everybody needs a coach. I think it's true. I have coaches. I think everybody does need a coach, but it's, it better be somebody that's wise. Somebody that understands you. Somebody's not doing it just to monetize their motives. Need to be correct. But I definitely have coaches in my life. And she's one of the ones that helped me to really have the material. But it was also guys like John Maxwell who I still do things with who were kind of to say, hey, Tim, like you're on to something, but you, you should take your setback comeback thing,

8:20not just into the one on one coaching, but let's take it to the executives. So I started getting like big accounts, 25, 26, 27 years of age. And so that was something that was good at what point did the Robert Downey Jr. thing come along? That comes in 1999 where there's a friend of mine who owned all these night clubs. Like he, they call them the gatekeeper of Hollywood. His name is Brent Bolthouse. And Bolthouse is a guy who does a neon carnival at Coachella. That's his event. Got it. He also owned Pied. He at one time was big at the SLS hotels. Now he has the bungalows. It's through him. I met probably 40 a list celebrities, not three, 40. Wow. So one of them was Robert Downey, who's one of my great friends to this day. And Robert was in a challenge.

9:20We started having conversations. And it was great thing to just see how his life went from set back to come back. But I never take the credit for that because Robert just a smart guy. And he put a good team around him. And I was fortunate enough to be part of that team. Yeah. I mean, one of the biggest setback to come back stories in Hollywood probably. So just as an aside, as somebody who's, if I went, he's, you know, he's a friend of yours. What's your, what's your favorite Robert Downey Jr. movie or role? Yeah. That's, that's a, a great question. I think that you can go all the way back to Chaplin, where he just did such a great job as Charlie Chaplin. But then you got to, you got to, you got to go to Iron Man. But I like when he's playing Tony Starks. Yeah. Yeah. Is what's so cool about being friends with these kind of people is that one day

10:21he came off the set to go to dinner with a few of us. And he was dressed as Tony Stark. Nice. So he technically had dinner with Tony Stark. Yeah. Yes. And I think he was still like in the role. Right. Right. Yeah. I love, I love what he's done with the Iron Man series. And the Tony Stark side of it. But that's a great story because Robert was really preparing himself physically just to stay on his sobriety side. Yeah. And I talked to the former CEO of Marvel on my podcast called The Miracle mentality. I talked to him about this. And he was talking about how Marvel was looking at Robert. And then it's great to hear that side of Marvel. And then I knew the Robert side, how Robert was getting ready to do that role. So the thing that I got about it is, you know, it's good to prepare because you never

11:24know they might ask you to play Iron Man. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Luck is just preparation meeting opportunity, right? Yes. Tim, when you have done what like your, your career is now spanned decades. You've been doing this for, you know, 30 plus years. Yeah. How, how do you stay focused on your main mission without getting side tracked and having that entrepreneurial ADHD brain pull you this direction, this direction, this direction, like you are set back to come back guy. And you've been doing that for such a long time, but you've made a deep focus on this one track. And it's brought you, you know, all the success in the world. How do you, how do you keep on? That's a great question. So I never talk about age, but they're going to figure out my age here in a second because I started, I started at 20 on stages. And I've been doing it 45 years. So it's, it's rare that you see a guy escalate, male or female.

12:28Now, during those times, there's been very few laws. And there's never been a time where I took a nose dive. There were, there were times where I took a hit because I just like, right? And I'm okay with that. That's just like, but to be able to continue to go higher for 45 years in the speaking side, the coaching side, but then because you're talking about making money, what started happening to me, probably like late 20s. I remember I was coaching this guy and he goes, you know, Tim, you're so good. I want to give you 4% of my company and Travis, I thought to myself, that sounds really low, buddy. That's for you. And so I call my attorney in Beverly Hills. He goes, Tim, can I help you with something? The company is evaluated at $100 million. So he's basically just told you he's giving you $4 million.

13:32So if I was you, you should probably be happy. And this is such a funny thing about money, right? Because when I started off in this thing, I used to do so many things for free. I still do things a lot of things for free. I love the rehab world. I do that for free. I love the incarcerated world. I go in there for free. So people started breaking off parts of their business to me. So the business side of me really started to emerge in my late 20s. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. Well, that also speaks to the idea of like you did not get into the space in order to make a lot of money. You got into it because there was something inside of you that was pulling you toward doing that thing. Then you did the thing. You got really good at the thing. You portrayed a high level of competence. And then the money started coming in after all of those things were in place. You know what I'm saying? Like I feel like there's a lot of people, especially in the coaching industry, which I'm sure you have some thoughts and opinions on how crazy that world has gotten over the years.

14:36But there's a lot of people that go into that space for the sole purpose of making money, not for the sole purpose of helping out the clients. And it comes out in the space. And it actually, I think actually gives a bad name to coaches in general because people get sperm. It's totally great. And to me, it's kind of sad because when I think about how I started and then went to Dr. Helen Mendes with such humility and like, you know, teach me your ways so I can help people. Travis, it was really all about like helping people, expanding people, accelerating people. You know, with this idea of even public speaking, like some of us, there's probably like just about a loop of 10 that we make like a whole car when you go speak. It pays a whole car. And that's that's really like trippy because I never got into the public speaking side for money.

15:36And when money started coming, it made me a little nervous. I thought like, man, am I becoming a sellout? But if you think of big companies like Starbucks or John Deere tractor, they can afford to pay you a whole car to speak. Doesn't hurt them. So they're going to do it anyway. Yeah. They're going to do it anyway. They're going to give it to somebody. You or somebody else. Yeah, exactly either me or the guy from Shark Tank. So I learned early like in my 20s, go ahead and take the money. And being that you guys are talking a lot about finance on your podcast, which I appreciate that because it's a very needed topic. I always was wise enough to put people around me who knew things that I did not know. Because I'm great on certain subjects, but on the money subject, I would have given myself like a B minus. Now give myself like a B plus or an A minus. But at the time, I was like a B minus, but I would put people around me that really understood money,

16:44what to do with it, how to shelter it, how to strengthen it. And so I learned that from some really wise people in Beverly Hills, they were always older than me. And so kudos to those men and women that cared enough about me. Are you an investor, Tim? Do you put your money in different types of assets? Yes, I always have. I mean, I didn't know. I didn't know so much about real estate, but I knew to get in. So I did, you know, buying my first house at 25. That was pretty good for me for my background. And then started buying houses and then moved into Beverly Hills, started buying houses and started going up, up, up. And then buying into companies. So I'm part owner of an AI company. I'm an AI business. I'm in the furniture business. I've been in the restaurant business about to launch my own shoe with the former CEO and founder of Reebok.

17:47And another guy named Ben Weiss, the Tim Story Walking Miracle shoe. Oh, yeah, I know Ben. Yeah, the custom shoes. Yeah, Ben super, super cool. The custom shoes that it's like a cooler version of crock. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had them on the show to talk as Centrelay. Yes, Centrelay going. So on Centrelay, the Tim Story Walking Miracle shoe is coming out. No worries. And it's so dope. It says walking on the back side and then Miracle on the right shoe. And I have a lot of entertainers and rappers and artists and creatives and gamers and skaters. Already saying that they're going to rock them. So I'm excited about the project. Tim, I always appreciate when we get to spend some time together, hang out a little bit for people that are listening who want more from you. Where can they go? Best place to go is timstory.com.

18:47So T-I-M-S-T-O-R-E-Y. We have a free newsletter. It's pretty cool. And then also we have a podcast called Miracle Mentality. We go to timstory.com by Travis. Thank you for caring about me. You got that heart. That's why we bond. And super proud of what you're doing. And you continue to grow and grow and grow at your very young age. I appreciate that Tim. Thanks so much for saying that. Timstory.com. ST-O-R-E-Y. Timstory.com. Go check out some of the stuff that Tim is putting out there. I know you will not regret that. It's always a breath of inspiration and fresh air. When we get to hang out Tim, I appreciate taking the time. Everybody else tuning in. Remember money only solves your money problems. But it's easier to solve the rest of your problems if you got some money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Catch you next time. Peace.