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Building Vulnerability and Community: Frank Vidal on Tucson Thrive and Authentic Connections
9 Plays15 days ago
In this powerful episode of The Profectory Podcast: Mastering the Mind and Market, host Manny Teran dives into the world of authentic connections and community building with Frank Vidal, the founder of Tucson Thrive. Frank shares the inspiring journey behind creating a virtual mastermind that fosters vulnerability, deep conversations, and genuine growth. We explore how Tucson Thrive breaks the mold of traditional networking by prioritizing openness and real-life experiences over surface-level success stories. Frank also opens up about the challenges of building a community where people are encouraged to be real and shares thought-provoking insights on imposter syndrome, AI's influence on LinkedIn, and the power of execution. If you're looking to cultivate meaningful relationships, build your personal brand authentically, and tap into a powerful community, this episode is packed with wisdom you won’t want to miss.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Profectory Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
The Profectory Podcast, Mastering the Mind and Market. Hosted by Manny Turan, we explore what it takes to succeed both in business and within yourself.
00:00:15
Speaker
From a strategy and business growth to mindset and resilience, we provide the tools to lead with clarity, confidence, and wisdom.
00:00:31
Speaker
And
Introducing Frank Vidal
00:00:32
Speaker
today's guest, we have Frank Vidal, who is a just in the truest sense of the matter, he is a guy who understands business, understands social media, created something called Tucson Thrive, which I want to definitely explore, and also is the program development director, I'm not sure the exact role, for the Toll & O'Hole Park. And I want to understand all these things.
The Challenge of Finding Mentorship
00:00:56
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Frank.
00:00:58
Speaker
Hey, it's good to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. You know, in the pre-discussion here, we were talking about how a lot of entrepreneurs don't really have necessarily a single place to go for mentorship.
00:01:12
Speaker
And, you know, they're getting mentorship from different organizations, from maybe an uncle or their their grandmother, or they're kind of piecing it together. and so this is a forum for us in in a different way to to give back.
00:01:25
Speaker
And I know at Tucson Thrive, you're doing a lot of this as well. Can
Origins of Tucson Thrive
00:01:29
Speaker
you give us a background of of what that is? Yeah. So Tucson Thrive um is ah community group um is, you know, the kind of what it is. And what happened really is um ah back in the day, I was having coffee with a lot of different people and which was great.
00:01:53
Speaker
you know People were reaching out to me because of my role with Tohono Chol. People were reaching out to me because of my LinkedIn presence. um I go to a lot of community events, networking events, and something clicked in my head and I almost felt a little selfish.
00:02:08
Speaker
And so I said, i am meeting with so many awesome people from our community. um i feel a little selfish that I am hogging all of the information myself.
00:02:21
Speaker
And so that's kind of a bit about how Tucson Thrive um came to be.
Tucson Thrive's Weekly Gatherings
00:02:26
Speaker
Tucson Thrive is a free ah virtual mastermind group. um We meet every single week except holidays.
00:02:35
Speaker
And ah the first half of the program, we have a discussion. um Sometimes it could be a dozen people. Sometimes we've had almost, I think, 40 people or so.
00:02:46
Speaker
And we kind of talk about all different sorts of things. Bottlenecks, whether it's personal business, we talk about um politics, we talk about ah personal development, sales, marketing, lead generation, marketing funnels, um philosophy, faith, cults, all sorts of things. Wow.
00:03:09
Speaker
And then the second half of the program, I do an interview um of a different... community member. And so um the interview is not your typical, hey, I'm going to interview a CEO, an executive director, a C-suite level person.
00:03:26
Speaker
um We take a very different approach. um Now, we do interview those people, but that's not the goal, like a lot of organizations. Our goal really, in our belief, is that we can learn from anyone at any age, at any stage of their career.
00:03:42
Speaker
Um, and so a lot of the times I would say 75% of the time we're talking about personal stuff. We're talking about passions and what kind of makes them tick. Um, the other 25% we're talking about work.
00:03:55
Speaker
And so it just kind of depends on who, uh, what their interests are. So. Wow. That, so that last part is very compelling. And, um, There's something to be said about the humility in that, right? If
The Human Element of Tucson Thrive
00:04:09
Speaker
you look at the social media ah platforms, they are they are covered with people that are standing on stage that have a message, right? The Simon Sinek's of the world, the Tony Robbins, the Gary V's, the Grant Cardone's. I mean, the list goes on and on. And sometimes for people, we we look at those individuals that are up there on the stage and and we...
00:04:33
Speaker
there's ah there's still a um big divide between maybe their culture, maybe where this entrepreneur is thinking they could be. And, you know, I look at, you know, Grant Cardone and his lifestyle, they think, well, that's that's too lofty for me. And how can I really get some and truthful experience and and insight?
00:04:51
Speaker
Whereas with your more, um yeah I don't know what we even call it, maybe more human, more reachable um interviews, that might connect with people in a different way.
00:05:04
Speaker
Oh, totally. i I would almost call it an experience. um And what I like to say about Tucson Thrive is people either love it or they hate it. And the reason why people love it is um we literally don't, it's not very surface level.
00:05:23
Speaker
We go straight into ah deep dive. We go straight into vulnerability. And
The Importance of Vulnerability
00:05:28
Speaker
we've had guest speakers where they're literally, everyone's crying. um Maybe they it was ah spousal abuse.
00:05:37
Speaker
um Maybe it was emotional abuse. Maybe they are going through a divorce. Maybe they were a part of a cult. um Something happened in their life, something traumatic, and that's what we talk about.
00:05:48
Speaker
And really, um those are the people that love it. you know They want to be vulnerable. They want to be real. They want to create those authentic relationships. and um And the people that hate it,
00:06:01
Speaker
Uh, they're the people that don't want that. And so we've had so many people, uh, just come once and we ask them a hard hitting question that they, maybe they answer, you know, and then we never see them again.
00:06:14
Speaker
Um, and you know, it's not, i don't want to say that's the goal, but it's a good by-product of the program that we're providing. um And so a lot of people have kind of been weeded out.
00:06:29
Speaker
um And that's okay, because truly, we're trying to build a community of people who want to be vulnerable and want to grow together. And um i keep using the word vulnerable. And I think it's because i think that kind of sums up the type of people that we ah that we attract.
00:06:47
Speaker
um And it's kind of built this culture about around a vulnerability and Um, it's, it's been great. Yeah, that's a, that's a word that I like a lot.
00:06:58
Speaker
Having started a business from scratch that grew quickly, that I then had to put down in the, in the course of six years and then sharing my story with people. And, you know, sometimes people can't believe that, that I'm so open, but, but my personal belief is that if you want to go,
00:07:19
Speaker
You know, the idea, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, invite others to go with you kind of um a mentality. Well, I think vulnerability can almost supercharge that whole framework.
00:07:31
Speaker
You know, CEOs that and founders that we we speak with that are going far fast, that are supercharged, there's something in there where they they opened up and they either have a board or they have coaches like ourselves or...
00:07:46
Speaker
a good buddy that they can lean on or framework of friends, they can put it all out there and get some good feedback. So that's pretty powerful. Yeah. I mean,
Personal Growth Through Vulnerability
00:07:55
Speaker
just to piggyback what you just shared, I feel like that's when you actually do the growing, right? I just think about things in my life where i had my back against the wall. had no other options.
00:08:06
Speaker
Maybe, I don't know, maybe it was depression. Maybe it was fear, anxiety, whatever it could be. and I feel like those are the moments in my life where like I did the most amount of growth.
00:08:17
Speaker
And so, i don't know. I kind of push the bounds sometimes with, um, my my day job with the community at large outside of Tucson Thrive because i literally want to have those hard-hitting conversations, those intellectual conversations. And what I've found, and that's been one of the biggest hurdles, is most people don't want that.
00:08:43
Speaker
I think most people say they want that. Most people say they want to be authentic. They want to be part of those communities, um but they don't actually invest the time and into doing it um or having those hard conversations.
00:08:57
Speaker
You're absolutely right. Okay, so you mentioned in this platform you talk about um social media and you know life stories and...
00:09:08
Speaker
business in general and and entrepreneurship. How often do you talk about trends? Have you ever had a discussion on trends? Um, I, I think periodically on Tucson Thrive, we do, um, you know, I wouldn't say it's categorized, you know, we don't position it or frame it as a trend, but, um, some of the discussion questions are trends.
00:09:30
Speaker
Um, I think last week or perhaps the week before we talked about the trend on LinkedIn about, uh, it's becoming a little bit like Facebook.
00:09:41
Speaker
Um, and so the trend of, Hey, what is, what's too personal? And what's too professional? And is there a mix? How do we blend it? um And it was pretty interesting.
00:09:55
Speaker
um You know, and obviously we're having a conversation about LinkedIn specifically, and obviously LinkedIn's a professional network. And I would say most people are like the blend.
00:10:07
Speaker
They like, you know, the educational... component of maybe ah going to an event or going to a workshop, but they also like to hear what that person had to say about it.
00:10:18
Speaker
what What was their experience? How did they interpret? What what was their key takeaway? um I think the thing, the consensus was that nobody likes to see just photos of puppies and babies or whatever without the professional contacts attached to it, which I don't know you know. I think LinkedIn is still very young, um even though it's been around for a while.
00:10:43
Speaker
um And i think um I think it'll be a completely different platform five, 10 years from now. Interesting. We look at global trends like demographics, AI, the gig economy, um connectedness, the the environment. There's so many big global trends that are impacting...
00:11:05
Speaker
Our everyday life and you know our um philosophy is that no matter what you try to do, you cannot beat them. And even if a new president comes in and changes something, there's still going to be this overwhelming...
00:11:20
Speaker
tectonic plate type of activity pushing the trend forward. I agree. Would you say that in the conversations you've had in Tucson Thrive or with LinkedIn or your just personal experience, how much have you seen AI play into these conversations?
00:11:38
Speaker
A ton.
AI's Impact on Social Media Strategy
00:11:39
Speaker
we have I would say maybe not every week, but maybe every other week, there's a discussion question about ai chat TPT, whether it's video, text. um I think it's interesting because
00:11:53
Speaker
if we're talking about LinkedIn, and let's just give some ah some metrics, ah let's talk about impressions. ah the The big trend currently is impressions are down 50% more.
00:12:05
Speaker
percent or more and I mean, last year, i you know, I'm not a big influencer. I'm not a big, you know, viral person. You know, I think I have a good following and I built a community, but I had over a million impressions.
00:12:23
Speaker
Wow. um Now that's only two, probably on average, maybe 5,500 connections. And you have to keep in mind 99% of my connections are in Arizona.
00:12:37
Speaker
If somebody sends me a connection request out of Arizona, 99.9% of the time i reject it And so I'm not really interested in building ah following outside of my local community.
00:12:50
Speaker
And so that's my niche. um That's my target audience. And so when it comes to AI, what I've really noticed um since November of what, 23, when ChatTPT came out, I would say for six months, everything was status quo.
00:13:07
Speaker
Now I log into LinkedIn and I see ChatTPT everywhere. Really? and you know i do i do some linkedin coaching and ghost writing um for some individuals here in town and i can see it right away i feel like I love AI.
00:13:27
Speaker
I love chat GPT. I think it is a wonderful tool. Um, I use it a lot myself, but the problem is in regards to LinkedIn, social media, building a connection, telling a story is that it's all starting to sound the same.
00:13:43
Speaker
but no And because it's all starting to sound the same and people can pump out content, like it's, you know, like I can put out 10 posts, right? Chat GPT. Um, the,
00:13:56
Speaker
everyone's able to post and and everyone is posting a lot more. And so I think that's why impressions are down. Um, there's just more in the market. There's more content out there. And so I think, um, I don't want to say it's harder.
00:14:11
Speaker
I think you just have to be more, um, you need to strategize. You need to be really focused on what type of content you're putting out. If you're going to build a community, um,
00:14:24
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think oftentimes when the the crowd is, you know, you finish in in a crowd of people and like at a football game, if there's one person yelling and everybody else is quiet, you can hear what they're saying. But if you've got 50,000 people yelling, you're only going to hear maybe the ones that are around you and that are loudest. So that's going to be interesting to see how all of that plays out in the coming years. And as you mentioned, the next five, 10 years, these platforms will maybe be fundamentally different.
00:14:58
Speaker
So yeah we'll see where that goes. So
The Power of LinkedIn for Networking
00:15:01
Speaker
regarding your your background in LinkedIn, why LinkedIn? Because you had all these, you know, all these people are are posting on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snap. I mean, there's all these other platforms that are more more leaning in towards your age. I'll just say that and your your you background. I mean, it just makes quote unquote more sense.
00:15:26
Speaker
And the older demographic, the 50 and above like me, were sort of leaning into the LinkedIn crowd and and maybe YouTube for that.
00:15:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I'll start by saying LinkedIn is literally the only social media platform I have. And so I think it's been maybe, I don't know, six, eight years since I had a Facebook.
00:15:49
Speaker
um You know, i had an Instagram for a few months, um didn't really get into it. um And I think the thing for me really is LinkedIn is the only platform where I could nerd out and talk about the things that I cared about and people actually cared about it.
00:16:05
Speaker
So I felt like I cannot post. what I'm talking about on LinkedIn, on Facebook, it would I think it would flop. Nobody wants to hear about, um at least not my personal connections.
00:16:18
Speaker
Now you have to remember, when I had a ah Facebook and an Instagram, it was my friends, right? It was my high school friends, it was my family, it was my coworkers, whatever. um I didn't have a global platform of other thought leaders and professional relationships on Facebook.
00:16:36
Speaker
That just wasn't a thing for me personally. And so when I went on LinkedIn and I could talk about sales, I could talk about marketing, I could talk about personal development, community, relationships, connections, whatever, people actually responded.
00:16:51
Speaker
Right. And so, I mean, that's kind of how I got hooked. um It just felt natural. It felt organic. um And it's just a place where I could be myself. No, I really like that.
00:17:02
Speaker
Do you have any any compelling stories from Tucson Thrive? Is there a particular story, situation, individual that that really made a lot of impact on you or vice versa that you might have impacted or somebody else? Like, is there something that happened that's like, wow, like this is really something?
00:17:24
Speaker
Yeah. I mean,
Building Connections Through Tucson Thrive
00:17:26
Speaker
I, you know, I probably have a ton of stories. If you have one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing.
00:17:34
Speaker
I've been building their my LinkedIn personal brand for years. And the thing that I loved about Tucson Thrive is that it was an open door to people that I never reached out to and vice versa.
00:17:47
Speaker
And so because it's a public virtual mastermind and we've eliminated all barriers of entry, you don't have to drive across town. You don't have to buy appetizer. You don't have to buy a drink. You don't have to get a babysitter. You don't have to pay for a membership.
00:18:02
Speaker
so the the people that I never thought I would have a relationship come and they've We've become friends. um Let's see. Kenneth Pearson um and his wife, Corey.
00:18:13
Speaker
um he They're both in HR. He works at the Tribe. um ah ah Greg Curtis Wakefield. um He's a life coach.
00:18:25
Speaker
um Him and I have done ah gone ah very close. um Ashley Bright, who you know. um Let's see. ah I mean, honestly, there's just so many. And story-wise, what I think is really interesting is, and this is what people don't realize, the magic doesn't happen at Tucson Thrive, even though it's a great experience.
00:18:46
Speaker
but my The magic happens in person. And so um I know two two individuals specifically who met through Tucson Thrive and they started doing business together. Okay.
00:19:02
Speaker
So you're saying they're part of Tucson Thrive and then after they meet offline at coffee shop or down the road somewhere else? Exactly.
00:19:13
Speaker
I mean, we're going to in-person events outside of Tucson Thrive. Um, and that's kinda, that's the beauty of connecting people. You know, Tucson Thrive is just the glue that kind of brings people together.
00:19:26
Speaker
Um, you know, people are collaborating, people are getting clients, people are generating leads. Um, but honestly, it's giving people a voice as well. Um, and I think that's, uh, I think that's the, I don't know if this is the correct term, but a big of it's the elephant in the room.
00:19:44
Speaker
yeah I think you can lead the horse to water, but you can't make them drink. You've heard that expression. I'm sure everyone's heard that expression. that's one of my biggest hurdles a lot of the time because you can connect the people, but, uh, you can't, um, I, I don't know what happens outside in the private world.
00:20:09
Speaker
And, uh, there's a lot that a lot of good things that come out of it, but also there's in regards to a LinkedIn, um, people don't show up all the time.
00:20:19
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and, and, and you know, You can give them the connections. You can give them the platform. You can give them a place to connect with people. And I mean, this is free.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah, there's no barrier. and And yet people don't come. you know i mean, we have a good solid group, don't get me wrong. But I'm saying like, i am and maybe I'm the founder and obviously I'm biased, but I feel like you know half of Tucson should be there.
00:20:49
Speaker
No, of course, and but you know the whole idea of if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Business, there's a lot of people on the sidelines in business and entrepreneurship.
00:21:01
Speaker
There are, for every entrepreneur out there carrying a card and knocking on doors and getting knocked down, getting knives thrown at them and all that, for every one, there's probably 20 that are on the sidelines.
00:21:14
Speaker
oh, I should probably start business. Oh, this. Maybe they're unhappy with their corporate life. I mean, I, for one, am one of those. Like had put my toe in many times to entrepreneurial kind of endeavors. i was on doing some consulting work. We're talking about but back in the mid 2000s.
00:21:35
Speaker
and um But I never jumped completely. and never I never, always had my day job. And then in 2009, we moved back to Tucson from Albuquerque and I was building a division of a company and we had a metric to to have it reach a million dollars in revenue the first year.
00:21:55
Speaker
It reached a little bit over half of that, like 660K. And so it was like, oh, it's time to shut it down. So we shut it down. I find myself in Tucson, no job in basically the bottom of the recession, 2009, 2010.
00:22:08
Speaker
And so that was and my wife at the time had a university job as a professor. So I kind of like said, okay, now I'll do it because I have no other choice. And I sometimes joke that if I would have known it was this rewarding and this challenging at the same time, i would have done a lot sooner.
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah. So what was that quote you just said about it being easy? If it was easy, more people would do it? Yeah. if it was e If it was easy, everybody would do it. Yeah. But you know what? sures Here's the thing that I believe, and maybe this is contrary to popular belief, but it probably is easy.
00:22:45
Speaker
Here's what I
Coaching and Execution Challenges
00:22:46
Speaker
found. I do a lot of LinkedIn workshops where and literally I tell people everything that I believe they should be doing on the algorithm side and the content side and the personal brand side.
00:22:58
Speaker
And 90, I would say 95% of the people that pay me to train them, they can't execute. And literally i have laid out step-by-step what they should be doing and they can't execute.
00:23:15
Speaker
And so I believe that even though it's easy, some people think hard things shouldn't be easy. Right. Are you familiar with CliftonStrengths?
00:23:29
Speaker
Yeah. So in the CliftonStrengths format, there's 34 of these strengths, which equate to talent. And the whole premise of this of this framework is that you should focus on what you're really good at. Focus on your strengths.
00:23:44
Speaker
and And then the that what you're not good at, you can either outsource or you build processes around it so you can not have to worry about that. And it's it's divided into four kind of major buckets. There is relationships, influence, execution, and strategy.
00:24:03
Speaker
And people tend to gravitate towards one or two of those, and then the other one or two or or three or or two are like way down at the bottom. So for me, My number one and two almost exclusively is influence and strategy.
00:24:23
Speaker
I have almost no execution. And I have very little relationship building. Now, let me say this. I have tons of friends. theres There's never been a human being that I've met that I haven't befriended.
00:24:36
Speaker
You know, I'm at the grocery store talking to people. Like, it doesn't mean that. It means in the business domain. It means in the way that some people operate exclusively in that. For me, influence is top.
00:24:47
Speaker
And strategy is top. And I know this about myself. And so for me to do something that requires execution as ah as a one of the domains, it takes a lot of energy.
00:25:00
Speaker
So I have the wherewithal, I have the ability to hire people to do the execution part. And so this just this is kind of an open discussion because i think it's so powerful.
00:25:11
Speaker
you know Find out what these strengths are and whatever you're not good at, hire it out. Well, i wouldn I would bet money that execution is probably pretty low for the average American.
00:25:24
Speaker
Probably so. Yeah. Because it's the biggest hurdle that I come across in my coaching career. um And that's essentially why I created a ah and and you know an add-on service that executes for you.
00:25:42
Speaker
You know what? ah Pay me and I'll teach you what to do. Try it out. couple months go by, nothing changes. Okay, then let's step it up a notch. Yeah. um You know it's interesting.
00:25:54
Speaker
um Going back to that quote that you just said about um things being easy. ah In high school, late high school, I and literally would get home from high school and watch one to two hours of personal development a day.
00:26:12
Speaker
and um And I'm not exaggerating. I was so deep into the world of ah Les Brown, Jim Rohn, Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, um ah all these speakers.
00:26:27
Speaker
And I was intentionally trying to brainwash myself. into believing what they were selling. um And ah I got hooked and into multi-level marketing.
00:26:40
Speaker
Now, I did not necessarily get hooked into the actual selling of a product or a service or whatever it was. I got hooked into conferences. And literally...
00:26:52
Speaker
I went to so many multi-level marketing conferences not to learn about product or sell sell whatever. Literally, I went for the training. How can I be a better salesman? How can I better be a better communicator?
00:27:07
Speaker
How can I use neuro-linguistic programming to sound smarter and to, you know, not trick somebody, but, you know, um to get what I wanted?
00:27:19
Speaker
And there was a one common quote that I remember from those years.
Grasping Opportunities and Mindset Shifts
00:27:25
Speaker
And I'm sure perhaps you've heard this because I think a lot of people have and um you would be selling somebody, somebody, somebody, something.
00:27:33
Speaker
um And they go, Oh, wow. You know, when you when it comes to the the revenue splitting portion, and they're like, wow, you can make $10,000 of residual income if you just get 10 people to do whatever.
00:27:50
Speaker
and that The thing that a lot is people would say is, that sounds too good to be true. And that's what reminded me of what you just said about things being easy.
00:28:04
Speaker
And then I always thought to myself, and people would say this, yes, it may sound too good to be true, but what if it wasn't? You never found out.
00:28:16
Speaker
Right. Right. And so when I speak with you, what I see is somebody who's had that aha moment, who it's almost like the matrix, right?
00:28:28
Speaker
You've gained knowledge, but you've been able to turn that into experience, which has unlocked this parallel universe of actually being able to to be where you are today and accomplish all the things you have.
00:28:40
Speaker
And i think a lot of people, lot of people that I know personally, don't even want to have that aha moment. Because there- Yeah, the matrix is hard, man.
00:28:53
Speaker
So- it's It's hard to, let me say it this way. Let me say it differently. It's not hard. is It is
00:29:03
Speaker
It is not a, it's not always paved in gold, right? There's going to be moments where there's going to be hard hardship. But when I had a very similar situation when I was a kid in high school,
00:29:15
Speaker
I was terribly shy, believe it or not. I was terribly awkward. I'm slow, la, la, la. But I'm not shy anymore. And what what I did is I, one time there was, this is way before your time, there was this um set of tapes about self-esteem and mastering your mind and blah, blah, blah, that I convinced my mom to buy. And it was expensive. So this is back in and like,
00:29:44
Speaker
the mid eighties. And I think it was like hundred dollars. So now if you do the math, it's probably like 400 bucks, right? And sort of 500. And so I convinced her, I really wanted this and whatever. And I would listen to these tapes over and over again.
00:30:00
Speaker
And i I kind of created, recreated myself because I recognize that my shyness is For me, now I'm saying other people, whatever, that's their own thing. But for me, it was preventing me from finding my own voice.
00:30:16
Speaker
and And so now, you know when I speak with my children or other people around me, i want them to find their own voice. They don't have to be gregarious. You don't have to be out there you know slapping backs and and telling jokes. It doesn't mean that. It just means that you've got to advocate for yourself and you have to speak when you need to to move the needle.
00:30:36
Speaker
So I think that's that's very powerful you said about you know intentionally creating that for yourself. Yeah. Well, think what I love is, you know I don't think I've had that aha moment in my life.
00:30:48
Speaker
At least it certainly doesn't feel like it. um But what I love is people who are aware and are stuck in the middle. Because most, I would say 90% the people know ah the people i know aren't pushing themselves to be aware that they can have that aha moment.
00:31:11
Speaker
And the other 10% that I consider myself, like we're aware that there's an aha moment. We just don't know how to get achieve it ourselves. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:24
Speaker
yeah you're You're in that and that purgatory, which which I've seen many people in. And I've seen people go in and out of purgatory. I've seen people go out, they get out of that mindset of like, oh i can' i can I can do it. And they go out and they do something.
00:31:39
Speaker
And then something happens in life and they go right back to it. And some of those do it because they don't know any other way. And I do have a few friends that have literally plugged themselves back into the matrix on purpose.
00:31:53
Speaker
Yeah. They were that character that wanted to be a rock star that wanted steak. I forget and the guy's name, but you they do that. Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is bliss. Yep. That's a line from the movie when he's eating the steak. You know, it's interesting because, uh, you know, this topic of imposter syndrome, it, I can't escape it.
00:32:15
Speaker
And I've done things in my life that I don't talk about often, but if I told people I did them,
00:32:24
Speaker
I think they would be surprised, but also, and I don't want to pat myself on the back, they would say, whoa. And, ah like, for example, like and late 2020, I was recruited to this role at a community and in the next year and a half, and I was, and for 90% of my time there, I was the only sales person.
00:32:49
Speaker
We generated almost $14 million. dollars
00:32:53
Speaker
That's like, sometimes I have to snap, like snap out of my own reality to say, dude, I was able to do that. Yet most of the days when I wake up, I have this imposter syndrome of I'm not even good enough for the job I have today.
00:33:09
Speaker
Right. I understand. And then that's where i I struggled. And so I'm going to tell you three quotes here. I'm going to tell our our our audience three. And you mentioned Zig Ziglar. I happen to love the guy. He's an amazing ah speaker, orator.
00:33:22
Speaker
he' He's an old school. He died many years ago, but old school. He was a Baptist minister for a while. He's done a lot of crazy stuff, but he was by, by all means, the imagination, he was just this amazing modern day philosopher when it comes to business and sales. So first one, Edge, first one, and these are for you personally, because I think that they resonate, but also to our audience. Okay.
00:33:46
Speaker
A goal
Goal Setting and Helping Others
00:33:47
Speaker
properly set is halfway reached. ah So if you can set your goals in the right way, you're, you're already on your way to success. Okay. Yeah.
00:33:59
Speaker
love that. Number two, this is really gonna be right at you. Okay. Frank? bring it small be but kind of personal right success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have because think about that you've accomplished a lot in the past four years five you're coming up on five years at your role and that's the ability you have that's it literally on paper you've made that happen And the the third one is one of my favorites. And I'm reading this because I want to make sure I get these correct. I know how to paraphrase them, but you can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. what they want
00:34:45
Speaker
yeah And that one is obviously what you're doing with Tucson Thrive and and all these personal connections you're you're creating, these collisions, as they're sometimes called. So for that, I commend you. Yeah. And, you know, it's it's interesting.
00:34:57
Speaker
a lot of times I'm very open and I'm very public on the fact that my personal brand is built on riding the coattails of everyone in our community.
00:35:09
Speaker
That's literally how it started. And I think, ah you know, when I started meeting people, I was in the scene. It was the documentation.
00:35:21
Speaker
And I think that's that's the big difference between what I do and what a lot of people do, others do, is so many people go to these events, so many people meet other people and they're talking about them, but they're creating the content.
00:35:35
Speaker
And one of the things that I teach is like, you just have to document it. Like, I'm already having great conversations with people in person or virtually, whatever. Like that's that's it.
00:35:47
Speaker
That's the magic. And I just think most people aren't um capitalizing on that because they have to, they're overthinking it and they have to create something that's maybe not there.
00:35:59
Speaker
um But no, I love those ah those quotes. Yeah, those quotes are are powerful. And you know there's something, you mentioned the coattail of others. There's nothing wrong with that, first of all.
00:36:09
Speaker
Secondarily, there's some philosophy, if you will, that every story that has been told or will be told has already been told.
00:36:21
Speaker
I agree with that. Star Wars, The Matrix are just variants of the Jesus story. ah Which are just variants of old Sumerian stories. Yeah. Which are variants of da-da-da-da. Like everything is just being recycled in a different way. It's still very impactful. still awesome.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah. But remember that, yeah, there's going to be your own stories going to be echoed in the stories of others. Yeah. Well, i mean, talking about trends, one of the things that I always tell people is people great people. meet great people People have great experiences.
00:36:56
Speaker
People have, you know, whatever happened in their life. And a lot of the times they say, Frank, I don't want to talk about that. My life's not interesting.
00:37:07
Speaker
Like people don't want to hear what i have to say. And what I always say is thinking, think think about um ah media, think about CNN, Fox News, MSNBC.
00:37:22
Speaker
We in the news world, everyone has the same information, right? um you know There was just ah a um ah school shooting right yesterday or today.
00:37:40
Speaker
that's you know I've been hearing a lot about it. Everyone has the information. I think what's unique, and this is what I always tell people, is you have to tell it from your perspective.
00:37:52
Speaker
That's the interesting thing. People, yeah, maybe they go to CNN, but do they really go to CNN as the network or do they go to Rachel Maddow? And that's the thing.
00:38:04
Speaker
Everyone, just like what you said about and the knowledge is there, the stories are there. Yes, but we're regurgitating them from our perspective and dropping the insights of what we want to share about the story.
00:38:17
Speaker
And I think that's what most people don't understand about social media or their personal brand is, yeah, I can go to Google and type in tell me, you know, the latest trends about ChatTPT.
00:38:32
Speaker
But, or I can go to LinkedIn and go to somebody's profile that's talking about chat TPT all the time and hear it from their side. Dwayne The Rock Johnson might be one, if not the last superstars.
00:38:46
Speaker
Okay. Tom Cruise is already a superstar, right? And he'll eventually age out and maybe he won't because he's a, He doesn't age very much. But the idea is that Dwayne The Rock Johnson is in these big superstar movies that are blockbuster.
00:39:01
Speaker
they're Their budgets are 500 million bucks. i mean, they're massive. And the reason we say that is because of a trend of these micro influencers, even nano influencers, right?
00:39:14
Speaker
Somebody who's got a thousand followers is a nano influencer and they're doing their thing you know somebody's got five or 10,000 might be a micro-influencer, but we gravitate now towards these different voices, kind of to echo what you say.
00:39:27
Speaker
I follow certain people on my social media feed that have small numbers, but I really appreciate what they have to say. Yeah. or the you know the likes of the the folks that run the you know Diary of a CEO podcast or um you know all these other things that they they're not mainstream media. I mean, if I say miss your Beast,
00:39:47
Speaker
Most people that are over probably 35 don't know who that is, maybe 40, but guess what? My kids know who that is. My kids know what he's done. And so we're carving out new level, ah no new levels of, of, of influence and new levels and types of entertainment.
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. And I mean, look at YouTube, it's been around for how long? And I still can go to one out of 10 people around me and they don't go to YouTube.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah, YouTube is the number one search engine for 55 and up. i'm ah I'm a YouTube addict. You know, we've had 12,000, 14,000 views on a particular short.
00:40:29
Speaker
And we're going to be doing a lot more of that this in 2025. Yeah. yeah And you know what's crazy about all this, Frank, ah is that a half hour podcast, we just blew through the half hour and it seems like no time has passed.
00:40:43
Speaker
So in the last minute or two here, first of all, tell us how we can reach you and how we can be part of a community. I
Connecting with Frank Vidal
00:40:55
Speaker
know that you're sort of focused on Tucson folks, but give us all that information.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah. So my name is Frank Bidal. I am the development manager at Tohonochul Park, but I also do some LinkedIn coaching and ghostwriting for people in Tucson and in the Phoenix area.
00:41:12
Speaker
um I also am the founder and host of Tucson Thrive. And so if you go to tucsonthrive.org, you can learn about the program. You can learn about the guest speaker for that specific night.
00:41:24
Speaker
And, you know, what's interesting is we probably have had maybe... six to 10 people join the call that weren't in tucson and so just maybe word of mouth um we had somebody from new york we had somebody from uh colorado i mean you know they just saw it on linkedin and they wanted to meet people from tucson for whatever reason and so uh tucsonthrive.org um And then Frank Vidal on LinkedIn.
00:41:55
Speaker
Nice. One other thing that I ask all of our our guests is is the following. If I was to give you a magic telephone and you could speak to yourself back in in high school, in late school, what would you tell yourself and why?
00:42:17
Speaker
ah Great question. I would tell myself to buy as much NVIDIA as I could.
00:42:24
Speaker
That's what I would tell myself. um Yeah, honestly, I'm not even kidding. um I'm really into finance. i and I'm super passionate.
00:42:37
Speaker
And I feel like even though a lot of the times I'm talking about community, I'm talking about beliefs, philosophy, all these kind of emotional ideas. um I am a strong believer that if you're not grounded financially, it's really hard to get in the right headspace.
00:42:56
Speaker
um And I honestly think that's why so many people struggle with their emotional intelligence is because they don't have the time to think about those types of things if they're working nonstop, if they're always tired, if they're working paycheck to paycheck.
00:43:11
Speaker
And so i I'm a really, really, really firm believer in financial literacy and in making sure that um you set yourself up for success and in the the financial department.
00:43:23
Speaker
And you know working in senior living for 12 And literally having so many older folks, they they all say that. Start investing, start investing, start investing, put away your money.
00:43:37
Speaker
And i think that was just really ingrained in me um throughout those 12 years. um What do you think? Has anybody ever said that answer? No one has ever said that, and that's that's fine. I mean, this is your voice, your your message to yourself.
00:43:51
Speaker
and And so, yeah, with that, Frank, thanks a lot for your time. Really appreciate you opening up and sharing with us, you know, at least a bit a snapshot snapot what got you here and the story behind the story.
00:44:05
Speaker
And with that, we'll talk to you. Awesome. Peace. Peace. Peace.