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Who produces all these fun and interesting Small Business Miracles podcasts? It’s our very own Theo Terry, Marketing Coordinator at EAG. We snagged Theo from the radio industry, which means he knows a thing or two about making us all sound good. After we hear from Theo, EAG Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Randolph brings us the wisdom of Todd Davisson, founder and creator of Soul Stirring. Todd, a Certified Professional Career Coach, talks to us about getting over fear, doubt and resistance. Are you willing to risk the embarrassment of growth? Change is scary. Not changing is scarier.
Transcript
Jeff:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles podcast. I am Jeff Randolph. This small business podcast is brought to you by EAG advertising and marketing. We are going to talk about marketing. We’re going to hear from entrepreneurs because we like to celebrate entrepreneurs. We have marketing news and advice business owners can use to keep moving forward. Plus, a featured interview that you’re not going to want to miss because it’s loaded with no end of soul bites. Soul bites are like sound bites, but you can brand soul bites better. I am excited to get to our featured entrepreneur, but first, let’s hear some marketing advice. I am here on the podcast with Theo Terry. Theo Terry is a marketing coordinator with EAG advertising marketing. Theo, welcome to the show.
Theo Terry:
Hey.
Jeff:
I don’t say this enough because you are the power behind all of this. You engineer, you produce, you went to, let me back up for a second. Tell the people. First, welcome to the podcast.
Theo Terry:
Hey. Hello everyone. How are you?
Jeff:
All right.
Theo Terry:
My actual first time ever appearing on a actual podcast.
Jeff:
Yeah, well no, this is it. This is your- man.
Theo Terry:
First time my voice ever being heard on this side.
Jeff:
Right. You’re always on the backside. You’re always on the other end of the transaction here, you’re on the production side. But your background, you are trained and educated for this.
Theo Terry:
Yes sir.
Jeff:
Tell people about your background for this.
Theo Terry:
Oh, took a tour down to Orlando, and went to a school called Full Sail. Currently Full Sail University. Graduated from there with a degree in Recording Arts. Great time down there. Awesome school. Met a bunch of great people, but learned a lot about audio engineering, just sound design and things like that. And I’ve always wanted to be behind that table. I’ve got that old school dream of the guy with the double tape deck recording in the bedroom type thing. Yeah, so it led me to reading in the back of a Source magazine, you would see Full Sail University in the back of it, and I actually ended up going, it was a dream, so it was…
Jeff:
Yeah.
Theo Terry:
…pretty cool.
Jeff:
And you got out of there and looking for a gig. You ended up working in audio and radio, for a long time.
Theo Terry:
Yeah. Well, I started promotions, started working in the promotion department at Carter Broadcast Group. That’s a Hot 103 Jamz!, KPRS in Kansas City. It’s a historic radio station here, longtime station, but very involved in the community. So the promotions work got me into the community work, doing things like internships and stuff like that leads you in the room to meet a bunch of different interesting people while you’re volunteering and working with the historic radio station. So led to a series of different things, but really, really learned how to love the city. Then learned that I had an affinity for marketing, paying attention to things and learning and understanding and growing so…
Jeff:
Well I can tell you we are thrilled as hell to have you here, and doing everything that you’re doing here for all of our clients. And the audio side of things ends up being just gravy. I mean, it’s a wonderful, wonderful resource to have, which after that setup, the reason I want to talk to you today on the podcast is not because we’re going to talk about- we’ve actually had conversations where we say, no tape is actually the way to go. And I go, that can’t possibly be right. It has to be digital. And there’s a deep dive into those kinds of discussions that we’ve had.
Theo Terry:
Oh yeah.
Jeff:
And it’s not even that I want to talk about.
Theo Terry:
Okay.
Jeff:
When we started this podcast, I had in my mind what I wanted this podcast to be and sound like. And I used GarageBand. We’re recording tracks on GarageBand right now. Because that’s what I know how to do.
Theo Terry:
Right.
Jeff:
Until I get up to speed on the actual pro tools, and that’s what I’m trying to do. But I had that thought in my mind of here’s what I want this whole thing to do. And so I was like, no, I’m going to put it together. I’m going to put the first episode together. I want you to hear it. I want you to hear exactly what I’m going for, and the sound I’m going for. You mixed down the intro, you did all of the things, and you have a background where you went to school for this. You were an audio engineer.
Theo Terry:
Yes sir.
Jeff:
And yet for some reason, I felt like, no, don’t give the first one to the person who was trained to edit audio. Do that yourself. What. The only thing I really want to talk about are my control issues. That’s all. Because why would I do that? I’m going to turn this around, you can ask me questions if you want because why would I do that if you are infinitely more qualified than I am to do exactly what we did?
Theo Terry:
Well, it’s about teamwork man, and about learning and growing. And on the other side of things, you don’t know how good you are at what you do.
Jeff:
Oh, stop that.
Theo Terry:
A lot of people just can’t grab on the mic and talk, myself included. That’s why you don’t hear me on this side often.
Jeff:
You’re doing a hell of a job.
Theo Terry:
Hey, I mean, I do my thing. I’ve seen a lot of people work, trust me. I’ve had the pleasure of working with several legends. The one that comes to mind is one of the first I got to work with a guy named Chris King, and if you know about him, you know what I’m talking about. That’s one of the legends, him, Freddie Bell, a bunch of old school guys, man, that really taught me not only what the power of communications was, they taught me about the power of networking, because these guys had to be community oriented for very purposeful reasons.
They didn’t have social media. They didn’t have the speed of which we use social media now. They had it, it was called phone calls. It was called knowing people, and people understood that, hey, if something happened on this side of the town, I got to call these guys. So I started thinking about the amount of work they had to put in versus the work we have to put in now. Man, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t learn how to work better together. All they did back then. Now we have amazing tools, amazing talents. Everybody’s got five or six different extensions of things that they can do. Someone in the room juggles, I don’t know who that is, but… someone in this room juggles.
Jeff:
That’s how you make me sound super cool, is that I have that skillset.
Theo Terry:
But when you find these talents out, and you see how amazing just things over time goes because that’s why people are able to do a lot of weird things now, because others made sacrifices, giving us the ample time to do weird things.
Jeff:
Man. Insane. Theo Terry, thanks for being with us on the podcast. And more importantly, thanks for being here and making us sound acceptable.
Theo Terry:
It’s all good, man. I love it. I appreciate it. It’s been an honor to work here. I’m learning as much as I ever could, and that’s really just the type of guy I am. And I like to put myself in situations where I can grow, and that’s what I’m doing here at EAG. It’s awesome, man.
Jeff:
Great job.
Theo Terry:
All right, Jeff.
Jeff:
Hey, everybody. We’re back. And I’m here with Todd Davison, and I’m going to say some initials after your name. It’s CPCC and ACC, Todd Davison, CPCC ACC. And that stands for Certified Professional Career Coach and Associate Certified Coach. First Todd, welcome.
Todd Davison:
Thank you, Jeff. Glad to be here
Jeff:
And then tell us, so the credentials, what does that mean to me the normal average user?
Todd Davison:
Well, really what credentials want to tell you is that I have training. Okay, I just didn’t hang a shingle on my door and jump into the profession of life coaching or business coaching. I actually went and got trained, and I’m associated, I have been associated with the International Coach Federation. So those credentials tell you that I take the profession seriously and that I’m committed to the work.
Jeff:
Yeah, because I do think there are some career coaches out there that just say, yeah, I’m a career coach, and just go with it. And that could be kind of dangerous.
Todd Davison:
Well it can be, and I’m not here to give advice. What I’m here to do is to pull out the best answers for you from you.
Jeff:
Oh, yeah, that’s a great way to phrase that. I like that.
Todd Davison:
Yeah.
Jeff:
I don’t know that I’ve heard a career coach say that exactly. That’s spectacular.
Todd Davison:
Yeah.
Jeff:
Tell me about the business, Soul Stirring. It sounds very powerful.
Todd Davison:
Yeah, so soul stirring, this is a little bend from career or business focus. So Soul Stirring is a spiritually grounded, life sort of transformation program, okay. And the background is- I’ve done a lot of work on myself, and what I found through a program that I was doing with a woman by the name of Kim Addis, she had a phenomenal program called Phenomenal Coach, and she had the participants work to develop a point of view for themselves, kind of like if you had to look in your DNA, what’s a DNA of Jeff’s point of view of life? And Todd’s point of view came out to be that I play smaller than I know myself capable, which means that there’s so much more of me to bring to the world. Right. My point of view is I play smaller than I know myself capable. So what’s on the other side of that? And why do I play smaller? And I came up with my top 10. And we’ll go through them all, but I came up with my top 10 reasons why-
Jeff:
Everybody loves a top 10 lists. I get it, it’s not bad.
Todd Davison:
Right. I had to have a top 10. Here’s one example, of those reasons was, I wanted to play like Eric Clapton. I wanted to play the guitar like Eric Clapton, but I wasn’t willing to get calluses on my fingers.
Jeff:
Yeah.
Todd Davison:
So if you’re not willing to get calluses, then either stop talking about playing the guitar…
Jeff:
Right.
Todd Davison:
Right, or get the calluses.
Jeff:
Or get going, yeah.
Todd Davison:
Right. Or get going, right. The top reason of the top 10 was that I failed to really recognize that I’ve got a spark of divinity within me. So I said spiritually grounded, right.
Jeff:
Yeah.
Todd Davison:
So, I believe that we each have a spark of divinity, within us. And some say God, some say higher power, some say universal energy. It really doesn’t matter to me. Again, it’s not a religious program, but when I hold that I have a spark within me, and that there’s one within you, it changes how I show up, and what I bring to the world.
Jeff:
Yeah, that makes sense. And the path to getting there. I know in a lot of the counseling professions, that the metaphor you could use is, once you climb the mountain, you can lower the rope to someone else, that you’ve done the work.
Todd Davison:
That’s not bad.
Jeff:
You’ve, put-
Todd Davison:
It’s good.
Jeff:
It’s on a postcard that I wrote somewhere, a long time ago. It seems like once you’ve done that work, you can really help somebody else and you see the benefit of it. And you know that just on the other side of that journey for someone is the same kind of fulfillment and satisfaction that you have achieved. So…
Todd Davison:
Absolutely.
Jeff:
Am I somewhere close on that?
Todd Davison:
No, absolutely. In fact, and I was thinking, what’s part of what I want to share with you in this podcast. And part of it is that this work is actually somewhat selfish. And I say that because it’s as much for me as it is for the participants.
Jeff:
Yeah.
Todd Davison:
Right. So every time I dive into this work, I’m getting as much out of it, as those I’m working with are. And it keeps it alive. You can’t- well I say you can. You have to keep working the work. You have to keep it alive, because if you just file it, I’m going to do the work and then I’ll file it.
Jeff:
Right.
Todd Davison:
Then it’s in some cabinet somewhere.
Jeff:
This is an interesting follow-up question, but is that work ever done?
Todd Davison:
It’s not.
Jeff:
I was afraid you were going to say that. That’s…
Todd Davison:
The work is never done, but how do you want to wake up to it, right. Do you want to wake up excited or committed to the work, or resign, because resigned isn’t going to move you very far.
Jeff:
Right.
Todd Davison:
But I’m committed and determined. And actually, what Soul Starring offers is a program to take you through 10 weeks that are structured to help you open up those doors of opportunity, unlock those things that have been holding you back.
Jeff:
Right.
Todd Davison:
And it’s staged. I can tell you more about it, but those 10 weeks will- on the other side of that, is soulful living.
Jeff:
Got it. I keep coming up with those phrases, and it’s the… the one that is coming to mind now is the… The thing that is separating you and your goal is fear. Whatever it is you want to get to, it’s the fear. And it sounds like those 10 weeks are, let’s work on that. Let’s get to the heart of it, and let’s figure out why you’re afraid, and what you’re afraid of. And is that a rational fear?
Todd Davison:
Most often it’s not, a rational fear.
Jeff:
Well in my case it’s never a rational fear, but I get it. I understand.
Todd Davison:
Yeah. In fact, I think it’s week eight, that we address head on, FDRs, fear, doubt, and resistance.
Jeff:
Okay.
Todd Davison:
So fear is the number one obstacle, or the number one thing that keeps us from living what we’re capable of.
Jeff:
Man.
Todd Davison:
But it’s all in our head.
Jeff:
Yeah.
Todd Davison:
It’s all in our head. But as human beings Jeff, we spend so much more time wrapping ourselves up and protecting us, rather than thinking about how to unwrap and expose sort of our vulnerabilities, our truths, what’s important to us. And so this program helps us unwrap what I call that gift.
Jeff:
Okay. So tell me about the business itself. We talk to entrepreneurs all the time. You decided this is going to be a thing that I do and get paid for and we’re making it happen. Tell me about the journey of saying, I’m going to do this as a job.
Todd Davison:
Right. Well, so I’ve got a background in sales, marketing, operations. I worked for Black and Decker and DeWalt and consumer products, managed $60 million businesses for them. And it was great. It was a great place to grow up. What made me successful was that I cared about the people that worked for me, and my aim was to set them up to be successful. So I’ve always had this passion for connecting with human beings, connecting with other people. Selling drill bits is okay.
Jeff:
Sure.
Todd Davison:
Right. And they’re important people, need to drill a hole somewhere.
Jeff:
Right.
Todd Davison:
Right. But I wanted to affect humanity, and my personal- partly through that program I mentioned earlier with Kim Addis, but also another mentor of mine. I came up with a personal mission, and that is that I want to honor the dignity of the collective human soul, one soul at a time.
Jeff:
Oh, man. Yeah.
Todd Davison:
Okay. And if you live into, as I try to live into honoring the dignity of the human soul, that’s huge. That’s what I want to play for. There’s a quote, I would butcher it, but something like, I’m not here to have my flame burn just a little. I want it to burn bright. And so honoring the dignity of the human soul is a big piece of that. And I said, you know what, that’s what I want to do. That’s what I’m here for. That’s the divine spark that I’m meant to unwrap. And it came out of a, lot of… Went through a divorce, and I went through my own life stuff, because we all have it. And I said, this is what I want to play for. This is what matters to me. You have a sandbox. Everybody has a sandbox. My sandbox is human development, human connection, human evolution. And that’s just where I choose to play.
Jeff:
Man. I see 112 different Instagram poll quotes, just popping out of this interview that we’re doing. There’s so much material there. One of the things that we talked about, I looked at just some topics of what you talk about and where you’re at. And one of those issues that you talk about is that paradox of comfort and discomfort. Can you explain that?
Todd Davison:
Oh yeah. So first of all, paradox. Can I say just one thing about paradox?
Jeff:
Oh, yeah.
Todd Davison:
Yeah. So let me say this. And I think, because I believe that our country, and I believe the world has an incredible tough time holding two opposites at the same time, right. We’re drawn to, or driven by a lot of other forces to want to separate things.
Jeff:
Yeah. We do it all the time. We don’t always feel comfortable separating the two. I think we hold a lot of different opinions that are in conflict, but we don’t reconcile [inaudible 00:17:05] we are uncomfortable there.
Todd Davison:
Well, I think we are uncomfortable. And to play in paradox is to find some comfort, some experience with being able to hold both, and at least hold the space for another person to have a different opinion than I do, and say that’s okay. So comfort and discomfort, right. So little kids when they learn to walk, they get up and they stumble. And they get up and they stumble and they fall and they stumble and they fall. And as a little kid, they don’t care. But on the other side of that getting up and stumbling and falling down is like, I’m going to learn to walk, and I’m going to learn to run. I’m going to learn to move forward, right. But as adults, we’re like, wait a minute. What am I going to look like? How are people going to see me when I stumble with whatever it is? And Soul Stirring says, we need to be willing to risk the embarrassment of growth, right. That is what I call a soul bite, not a sound bite.
Jeff:
That’s a soul bite.
Todd Davison:
That’s a soul bite, baby.
Jeff:
That makes a whole lot of sense. Yeah.
Todd Davison:
We have to be willing to risk the embarrassment of growth, because if we’re not willing to risk that, if we’re going to stay only on the side of being safe, growth and expansion and new opportunity and possibilities, what I say is on the other side of comfort, we’ve got to be able to step into that and be willing to screw that one up. I don’t know if I can say screw it up.
Jeff:
I think you can say it. We can use that.
Todd Davison:
Okay, I just did. But I screwed something up. And hopefully that won’t cost me something. But I’m going to assert that if you’re willing to stumble into what you’re meant to be, this is good. If you’re willing to stumble into what you’re meant to be, life is going to look and feel so much better than containing ourselves in this box of comfort.
Jeff:
Man. Yes, in every way. Great explanation. And really kind of, I think captures all of those paradoxes. Let me switch us into the lightning round.
Todd Davison:
Okay.
Jeff:
Lightning round has some rules. There are no rules. Everything is fair game, no. It’s short answers, soundbite answers. If a soul bite comes out, so be it. Let’s hear that.
Todd Davison:
Okay.
Jeff:
But it could be anything. So it’s all your opinion. If we want to dive into it, we can, but short answers and we’ll just see where it goes.
Todd Davison:
Okay.
Jeff:
Here’s the lighting round. Is anyone uncoachable?
Todd Davison:
Yes.
Jeff:
Interesting. And what makes some uncoachable?
Todd Davison:
Well they’re because if you’re not willing to consider where you’re at, or that there’s another option. If you’re so blinded, blindfolded by your own conscripts, then you’re not coachable.
Jeff:
Youth development would say growth mindset versus a fixed mindset.
Todd Davison:
Yes.
Jeff:
So if you have a fixed mindset, you may not be coachable. Who is your favorite coach? And I’m going to leave coach as being just totally broad, in the broadest sense of the word. Who is your favorite coach?
Todd Davison:
So there is- And I’ve never met this person, he’s deceased. Right. But there’s a rabbi, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Hesche. And I’ve listened to a lot of his work, and I’ve read some of his work and I want to read more, but in a nugget, he says that the meaning of life is to treat your life as a work of art. And when I think about living my life as a work of art, as either a Picasso or a Michelangelo or whatever, every moment is a new opportunity to enrich how I show up, and the art of how I live. So yeah.
Jeff:
Good. What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
Todd Davison:
Let go of perfection.
Jeff:
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, kind of thing.
Todd Davison:
Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that life is messy. And that if I want it to be neat and clean, and as much as I could have liked that sometimes, I have to embrace the messiness.
Jeff:
Yeah. Soul bites. Here’s a question on the- a blank check for your business. We want to get Soul Stirring moving along, and impact everybody, one person, one soul at a time but do it on a mass scale. If we gave you a blank check, what would you do with that?
Todd Davison:
Oh my gosh. So I would say yes, to your proposal.
Jeff:
[inaudible 00:22:02] first. Accept, I accept this.Todd Davison:
I accept, yes. If I had a blank check, I’d want to pay Oprah Winfrey for my interview.
Jeff:
Oh, yeah.
Todd Davison:
I want to sit down with Oprah Winfrey, under her oaks trees in the back of her Hawaiian home.
Jeff:
Right.
Todd Davison:
And I want to have conversations with her like I’m having with you. And that’s-
Jeff:
That would be fascinating. That’s the… I’m having a dinner party question where… Who do you invite living or dead? That’s, conversation with Oprah.
Todd Davison:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:22:35]. Can I have that check?
Jeff:
Yeah. Well I mean, the check is a theoretical construct of… All right, how do you celebrate a big win? Whatever that win is in your life, how do you celebrate?
Todd Davison:
That’s great. So Ben and Jerry’s.
Jeff:
Oh, a particular flavor?
Todd Davison:
Yeah, fish food.
Jeff:
Fish food. Okay.
Todd Davison:
It’s hard to go wrong. My buddies Ben and Jerry, and then I celebrate with sharing the success with someone I’m connected to.
Jeff:
Now that’s [inaudible 00:23:03].
Todd Davison:
Someone that I’m dating or, my sister is a huge advocate for me, and so I’ll share the win. Or my dear friend Anna in Pittsburgh, I’ll call them and say, hey, this was a win. This was a big one. And celebrate it with them.
Jeff:
I don’t want to celebrate it alone. That is not usually a thing that I ever want to do. That is big, and fish food. I think I may go with the Peanut Butter Half Baked.
Todd Davison:
Oh.
Jeff:
It’s a good choice. If you get there and you find that fish food is gone, maybe go with a Peanut Butter Half Baked.
Todd Davison:
No. Peanut Butter Half Baked is one of my tops also. And- get me started on Ben and Jerry’s. Target has an exclusive favorite, peanut butter world.
Jeff:
Oh, this is a tip I needed. Where has this been all my life.
Todd Davison:
I know. Check out the Target, Ben and Jerry’s, and it’s an exclusive.
Jeff:
All right, how can people find you? Let’s say that they picked up on any of these sound bites or they go to Instagram and they see all of the quotes and they go, yes, I’m in. How do people find you?
Todd Davison:
So my website is www, Soul Stirring, I-N-T-L for international.com.
Jeff:
Excellent.
Todd Davison:
And if I can give my email, they [inaudible 00:24:09] also welcome to email me at Todd at inspired, because before Soul Stirring there was inspired action. There still is, okay. So, Todd@inspired the number two, act.com.
Jeff:
Got it. All right, thanks very much. This is Todd Davison with Soul Stirring. Thanks for stopping by today.
Todd Davison:
Jeff, thanks for having me.
Jeff:
And that is our show. Thanks for listening to the Small Business Miracles podcast. No end of all kinds of things that you could put on a quote board, and just improve your life every single day. Remember to subscribe. Leave us a five star rating and review. Drop us a line on the website, @eagadv.com if you have some thoughts. Until then, we’re going to be out here helping entrepreneurs with another small business miracle.