Have you ever started a company? I’ve started a few, but I’ve never had such a deep intentionality and sense of purpose before. For me, it’s a sense of calling. Here’s how it all began. Certainly it was born out of research, experience, and necessity.
S1E8: Founding a Company
Tyler Small: 2020 was a rough year for many. And I decided to make the best of it by starting a company, writing two books and doing my best work ever. The five-star approach.
[00:00:14]I'm Tyler Small and this is hacking emotional intelligence.
[00:00:19] So yeah, we sold our house for seed capital and we just jumped into it.
[00:00:24]I had some consulting work I was doing and it just became extremely clear to my wife and I, that this is what we needed to do next. And that this would. Carry us through many years and if into the future. So I started coaching people and refining the programs for scale, and it was a great year for us.
[00:00:46] We we really made the best of it. And a lot of people ask me what it was like to write my first book or to write my second book. And I've written a lot professionally. The number of manuals and articles and videos, scripts, and formal company-wide communications that I've written is probably more than most people get to write.
[00:01:09]In their lifetime. I've also filled up like 20 journals. Probably closer to 30 actually. So writing is something that I've done a lot of. So writing these books, it wasn't difficult for me. I didn't really run into writer's block very much. I can think of one time when I did and I just needed to research more.
[00:01:27]It's been really fun. The research for these books has been really fun. The first two books I wrote about my family relationships, those I consider far more important than my work relationships. And so I started there and I wrote those two books. The first one is a book for parents, the five-star approach to parenting.
[00:01:46] I applied my work. Skill set and the principles that I learned, and I just, I took my work home with me and wrote the five-star approach to parenting loved it. It was a lot of fun. The research for the book was really I would say all consuming and and just a blast.
[00:02:03] a
[00:02:03] Tyler Small: Lot of the research for example, was.
[00:02:06] Me figuring out my relationships with my kids, I would ask them questions like, Hey what can I do to create a five-star experience for you today? And, sometimes it was harder to do my middle child. John he's very picky sometimes we would drive all over.
[00:02:20] town I'm trying to create a five-star experience, for a couple of hours. But it does take time sometimes to get to the bottom of the relationship and find out what their highest priorities are. And that was really fun. I can definitely say that our family has become much happier.
[00:02:36] We communicate much more fluidly and calmly than before. And my second book is for couples. It's the same approach. However, It actually became far more developed as I put it to use with my wife. The kind of the story behind it is I had developed five-star relationship with my kids. And then it was , like a Saturday morning.
[00:02:58] And my wife was yelling at the kids or something. And I said you should read my book, and then , you'd have an easier time. And it was just the wrong moment. And and she said to me, you should probably work on your relationship with your wife and prioritize that a little more than your relationship with the kids.
[00:03:17] And that was so true. I needed to work on that. And at the time we actually were going through this weird. Dip in our relationship and, I'd worked so hard to optimize my relationships with my kids. And at the same time we were under a little bit of stress making some big decisions and I wasn't on board with the things that she really wanted.
[00:03:38] And had to figure that out, had to figure out how to get myself on board and how to. Really be a supportive husband. So that book is the story of how that all went down and how we went actually from a one-star relationship to a five-star relationship which has been the biggest blessing for me.
[00:03:57]And now I can honestly say that I have five-star relationships with all of my immediate family members. Such a wonderful thing. So I think that's a really good place to start. If you want to work on relationships, do the ones in your home. Let's start with your relationship. If your parents are alive and around with your children, with your significant other those are the relationships that hopefully lasts longer than the ones at work.
[00:04:20] And and this is a new year, 2021. So we, we love to 2020. We made the best of it was a great year. And now this year we're building out Our marketing machine, launching a podcast and planning a summit more to come on that we'll also be expanding our programs. And I'm writing my third book for leaders and professionals.
[00:04:44] So personally this year I'm just very excited about this book. I'll be doing a lot of research for it. Applying all of my. Best coaching principles and practices in the new programs that we've developed and writing about it in, in the book. So it's going to be really fun. First two books Very much showed my faux pas through my family experiences and how I learned from them.
[00:05:10]And we all came on top. And this third book we'll go over some of what you've heard in the podcast, but some new things that I have yet to reveal. And and they'll also go into a lot of stories from others that have used the approach successfully. Outside of work this year.
[00:05:26]I'm last year, I probably average 10 miles a week running and hiking something. I am very passionate about. But that wasn't that wasn't as much as I'd like. And so this year I've been running and hiking I would say over 20 miles per week. And my goal is to push it over 30 miles per week by the end of the year.
[00:05:47] On the soft skills side, I'm a huge fan of Adam Grant and he wrote this book called give and take. Fantastic, but give and take highly recommended. And I should do a podcast on that book, and in the book, it talks about becoming a giver and not being a doormat type of giver and not not being a taker that just is giving in order to get something.
[00:06:13] But really Which they call it, he calls a matcher but becoming more of a giver. And I love to help people. I love to to give. And so this year I want to be a year of giving for me. And so the podcast is actually one of the ways that. I am doing that. Podcasts are generally free. This one is free and will always be free.
[00:06:37] And I want to help you. I want to help you improve your relationships at work and beyond, and I'm going to, I'm going to do everything I can to give you as much free information and resources as possible this year. So that is the story of how the five-star approach was founded. And. What we did last year, what we're doing this year?
[00:07:00] Hope you enjoyed it. I am Tyler Small and this is hacking emotional intelligence. Yeah.
[00:07:11]