Leanne Woehlke
It is a pleasure. It's an honor to have you here. And I appreciate you just for who you are, and for your willingness to make time for this. So thank you.
Tim Storey
You're very welcome.
Leanne Woehlke
I have to say when we first met you were talking about growing up in Compton, and, you know, the parts of LA and my dad grew up in Lincoln Heights in Boyle Heights. And so I felt this connection immediately to you.
Tim Storey
We would have been neighbors.
Leanne Woehlke
Yes. Yes, for sure. Tell us a little bit, Tim, if you can, about your background, you've got such a beautiful backstory. But how you grew up, and I think that shaped so much of who you are.
Tim Storey
Yeah, I think that, you know, predominately, my childhood was very happy. Um, I am innately optimistic. I see things a lot through the eyes of humor. I love comedians, ever since I was a kid, back in the days, you know, you had the big albums, and there were various comedians that were big at that time. And I would listen to those albums over and over again. So I So a lot of lot of life through comedy. So even though we were lower income, seven people in a two bedroom apartment to start with, it was interesting guys because I didn't really see us that way. I just saw that it was cramped. And but I was always thinking big and small places. So, you know, raised in low income family father was a steel worker 10th grade education, mother sixth grade age education, worked at a place called winches donut shop. Have any of you ever been to a winches? Please lift your hands.
Leanne Woehlke
Yes.
Unknown Speaker
And so um, we used to get the day old donuts. We had to wait till they were a day old. And then my mother would bring some home so yeah, That's how we that's how it started. But I think that that worked for me because I had a drive to do better. That's that's that's my, the genesis of Tim's story.
Leanne Woehlke
So when did you know you were destined for greatness?
Tim Storey
I knew I was destined for goodness.
I knew I was destined for at least goodness. When different people started to see that I had something to me. My sixth grade teacher, Mr. Robert asked me to stay after class. And he says, Timmy, I want to tell you that I think you are and I didn't know what he was going to say. And then he said, I think you are brilliant. Because you're brilliant. I want to see if you want to read some books from my personal library. And one of the books was a book written by Irving stone, about the life of Michael Angelo. Little did I know some 30 years later, I would meet the wife of Irving Stone, Jeanne Stone, who's now in heaven, and tell her this story and bring her to tears. Because by reading that book as a 10 year old, it just made my mind just go boom of what this Michelangelo guy did. And so I feel like I had a lot of very positive instructors who built me up anywhere from my school teacher, to my coaches in sports.
Leanne Woehlke
It's beautiful. It's amazing that you know that you were receptive to it and open and that you had those people that believed in you those believing mirrors to elevate you, and to really call forth the goodness inside you talk About a god idea versus a good idea, I've read your book and loved it. And how can you tell the difference? If it's something of you versus something of, of God?
Tim Storey
It's not easy at first, because I think number one, we're made in the image of God. And so because we're made in the image of God, I think within us we are creators, because God is a creator. So we're creators. And that's why you see little children. You can leave them on on their own for a while, and they are already playing. I'm a princess or a little boy, you know, I'm a fireman, I'm a policeman. And they're playing games because made in His image. We're, we're, we're creators, but I think that it's very important for us to be put in the right environment where we can allow ourselves to soar. And I find in my studies that a lot of people do not soar. Because the ceiling in their household, or the ceiling in their relationships are too low. And they don't allow them to go beyond the ceiling. And so that's very, very, very important that we let the creativity rise in all of us. And so, we learned three primary ways, education, observation, and conversation. And through education, I have learned through observation of even watching all of you on the screen, I'm staring at all of you, I see what's going on observation, but also conversation can change your life. One conversation can change your life forever.
Leanne Woehlke
For good or for bad. I think when I was growing up, I had a neighbor I was the kid that wanted to have the popsicle stick houses and I was convinced it was going to be this huge endeavor and we were going to make millions and neighborhood carnivals and did everything under the sun. But one of my neighbors said, Oh Leanne, and her big ideas, and so no longer Was it okay for me to have my big ideas. And the ceiling was lowered.
Tim Storey
Yeah. 100%. So that's why it's important to have more than one conversation was you I would have said, Hey, so and so said this. Hey, Carmen, what do you think?
Leanne Woehlke
I think I was like nine. Thankfully, I did have more conversations and my crazy idea. Continue now, as these guys can all attest to what would you say? A lot of people I work with People in the heart based entrepreneurial space primarily. And a lot of them as soon as that doubt comes up, they question Is this the thing to do even right now in the light of this interesting situation we all find ourselves in. People are doubting and what I'm finding is people are just throwing the towel in. What would you say?
Tim Storey
Well, I would say that we have to truly understand what life is about and that life is seasonal. Just as in many parts of the nation, not all, but there is a there's a winter that feels like winter. Because in LA doesn't really feel like winter. But there's a winter there's a spring there's a summer and there's a fall and that's how life is. And the great writer of Ecclesiastes, he's said says there's a time and a season for everything. There's a time to terror time demand. Time to be silent and a time to speak. COVID-19 is simply a life interruption like we've never seen before. Usually we'll see an earthquake in a certain part of the world or hurricane, a tornado that takes place 911. So those are usually found in locations. COVID-19 is the first of its kind, to literally hit every corner of this thing called the planet. And so it's a life interruption. But those of us that are all watching at one time, we have to be mature enough to realize that life interruptions are going to come and it could be you having a test done and finding you have cancer, or as a child, people get molested or people get delayed. Horse never thought that would happen. And so COVID-19 is just a bigger version of a life interruption that's touched a lot of people. But I do believe that it is innate. It is inside of us to handle these things. Because there's there's a, there's a scripture in the Bible that says that God's people are like a palm tree. And in my research about the palm tree is a palm tree can go as as far as 30 feet deep into the ground. The other thing is that in its trunk, it has built in elasticity. So watch how powerful this is. You Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, bounce, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben bounce. So to all of you that are there watching me and then all of you that are listening to us, hey, how many times if we think we were going to break for good but we we were bending Bending, bending, bending, bouncing back. So the bounce back is in you, you run deeper than you thought. And no, you know, no matter what you're going through, I believe that you'll find a way through it.
Leanne Woehlke
You tell a story about bounce, and you talk about how you used to play a lot of basketball. And you talk about how people sometimes lose their bounce. And it's like trying to bounce a partially flat basketball.
Tim Storey
I like it. You did do research on my basketball, illustration. Yeah, so I remember one time you were all excited, you know, we're kids, so I was like nine. And one of the kids Mikey, Mikey Gibson said, Timmy, do you have a basketball? I said, Yeah, he's because mine's flat. So I went into the garage into the area where we had this nice bin because everything was organized at my house and I got the balance. basketball. It felt awful, though when we got to the court, and I went to take my first dribble it was semi full and just kind of went kind of a not a complete flop. But it was not a high bounce. And I think if you're not careful, life cannot the bounce out of all of us. And so that's why it's so important that we have self care that we feed our faith and starve our doubts. That we strengthen ourselves. So that when, when the challenges of life hit, that we are filled with the air and the oxygen, so we maintain our balance.
Leanne Woehlke
It seems like pre COVID-19 a lot of people maybe lost their balance a lot of people that that were around Are you know 46 As their kids start to grow up, they have this epiphany like, Oh my gosh, how did I get here? What's the rest of my life? So in this eight week pause, they've kind of reconnected to themselves to something bigger than themselves, implemented some good habits. But I heard from one of our our clients going back to work and Tennessee just started to open back up this week and the end of last week. They're hitting up against that resistance again, because they're going back into something that no longer fits.
Tim Storey
Yes. So the reality is, is that in order to do well in life, we have to have internal motivation. So I have notes on motivation, that means inspiration, stimulation, enthusiasm, but I like these to drive and initiative. What most people have is inspiration that's kind of on the outside that lasts so long. And then it begins to leak out. For when somebody has internal motivation, stimulation, enthusiasm, driving initiative, it's hard to shake that out of them. So it's very important to realize that in the midst of life, there's two things you have to have. And number one, that's a healthy soul. A healthy soul that you have to you have to guard your daughter, son, your heart, and because you got to guard your heart because that's where the issues of life come from. joy, peace, strength, goodness, all come from the heart. The second thing you have to guard and that's your healthy mind. Because without a healthy mindset, you will not create, inspire and even want to work. So, in the COVID-19 isolation, or outside of isolation, please guard your heart, guard your mind. And if you do that you're pretty hard to stop.
Leanne Woehlke
Can you talk a little bit about what practices and principles you have to implement that yourself?
Tim Storey
I'm gonna make this super deep. I like to listen to Stevie Wonder. He builds me up. If you watch my instant story this morning, I was Bebop into other music. I love music. I'm moved by music. I love Marvin Gaye. I love music, Motown. I love music of today. And I'm friends with a lot of the people to do music of today. But I'm, I'm very moved by the 70s in the 80s because it it, it was in my years of development. So I go back there a lot. I use music to build me because of my faith. I do a lot of studying of Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, it builds my faith builds my faith and starts with my doubts. And then I hang out with very positive people. I have an unfair advantage of most people is that most of my friends are extremely positive. And most of them are very smart, like this whole panel here. So yes, that's how I stay up here.
Leanne Woehlke
Top now yesterday, I guess it was Sunday, Mother's Day. I know you had a panel One of the people on that panel was Deepak Chopra. And he was talking about in this time of that we're in that people are going almost through stages of grief. And he said, the one stage that was super important that people get through to kind of transition through this whole process is the stage of meaning.
Tim Storey
Yes.
Leanne Woehlke
So what would you say? What is your meaning that you're creating through this COVID-19 time you have put yourself out there in amazing ways?
Tim Storey
Well, number one, thank you for thinking that. I think that, to me, is that meaning to me is goes back to creation and the fact that God created the heavens and the earth and he created human beings. I'm into I'm into human beings. So even though I may have a certain philosophy or follow a certain religious teaching, or I may be a person that was raised, you know, in an African American environment. What I'm into is human beings. And so, in a time where human beings are suffering, that's the thing that makes me rise up. So, I think stages number one, you live your life and out of living your life, fully present fully feeling fully alive. When you are full, you begin to overflow. See, I think too many people are giving just from their place of sacrifice, and their place of I'm giving because I have an empty tank and it's gonna make me feel good. A lot of my giving comes Out of my full tank. It really does. And if I feel like my tank is not full, I'm gonna go find a place to fill it. So, I'm in the meaning I'm in the matter. I'm in the purpose. And right now the world needs all of us to roll up our sleeves and help in our various ways. In one ways, I am helping us in the area of helping with the prisons COVID-19 hitting the prisons. I'm on Robert Downey Jr. His board, he created something that we're doing called Ark and prison reform. Now run by amazing people with my buddy Scott by Nick, and also with Sam who's running everything. So, you know, out of the fact that I care and then all you care, we step out and we extend our hands.
Leanne Woehlke
See, I know you talked a little bit about How you fill yourself up with music with Scripture in your face. But you talked about how you How else do you ensure that your tank is full?
Tim Storey
Ah, talking to you?
I think we're just making it like too robotic. Yeah, like I woke up today. And the first thought out of my mind was not like I feel so alive with the sound of music. Now I woke up in my body that's in my 50s said, Ah, that was th
