Tony Gaskins Jr. is a motivational speaker, author, and life coach who has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show. Tony built his brand from scratch to where he now has more than 1 million followers on social media. At 22, he became an author. At 23, he became a husband and father. At 25, he started his first company, Soul Writers LLC. At 25, he also got himself on globally televised shows to tell a portion of his story. Tony decided to turn his pain into purpose and live a life of service. Raised in the church and being the son of a pastor, there was something about service that stuck with Tony.
Tony made his fair share of mistakes like most young men from areas like where he grew up. Many of his childhood friends are serving life sentences in prison. Although Tony was introduced to the street life between the ages of 18–23, he finally found his way. At 23, he allowed love to change his life. His wife was unwilling to be with a man who wouldn’t live up to his full potential. That tough love pushed Tony to be more and to do more.
By combining all of his passions Tony became an author, life coach, and speaker. In 2015 Tony began working with an NBA team as the team life coach. Tony also became the life coach for several college teams. His message comes from his mess. He believes that we all are coaches because we’ve all learned lessons that can help someone else. Operating in his gifts also took him around the world as a highly sought- after speaker. Tony has spoken in two other continents and over 10 different countries and counting. Tony was able to accomplish these feats by the tender age of 31.
He doesn’t believe in boxes. “Don’t put me in a box until I’m going in the ground,” he says. He covers a wide range of topics in the areas of life, love, and business. He’s written several books on those subjects with his latest work being The Dream Chaser published by Wiley and available everywhere books are sold.
In today’s episode, we discuss:
- His appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show
- How his background helped shape who he is now
- Writing books to help people
- Working with and connecting with NBA players
Dr. Cory Dobbs is the Founder & President of The Academy for Sport Leadership. A former basketball coach, Cory’s coaching background includes experience at the NCAA DII, NJCAA, and high school levels of competition. Cory has worked with collegiate athletic programs and high schools teaching leadership and team building as a part of the sports experience and education process. Cory is an accomplished researcher of human experience–a relentless investigator of team building and leadership behavior. A skilled researcher, Cory actively engages the process of naturalistic inquiry seeking in-depth understanding of social phenomena such as leadership and team building in their natural setting. A “teamologist,” Dr. Dobbs is an author, speaker, teacher, trainer and a consultant. Cory has been a recognized educator teaching at institutions such as Northern Arizona University, Ohio University, and Grand Canyon University.
Lolly Daskal is the go-to executive leadership coach for Fortune 500 companies. She has been named by Inc. Magazine as a Top-50 Leadership and Management Expert. The Huffington Post honored Lolly with the title of “The Most Inspiring Woman in the World”. She regularly writes for the Harvard Business Review, Inc, Fast Company, Huffington Post, and Psycholgoy Today. Her newest book is called The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness. It has appeared on the New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller charts. Lolly is the founder of Lead from Within, a successful leadership firm that offers custom made programs in leadership and organizational development. Lolly also has more than 1 million followers on twitter.
Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler serves as the President of GES Advisory Company. Shemy has spent the majority of his life and professional career in the football industry, growing up as the son of legendary coach Glenn E. “Bo” Schembechler. He has evaluated talent for such high-level programs as the University of Michigan, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Chicago Bears, the Washington Redskins, and the Seattle Seahawks. In addition to his father, Shemy has studied under accomplished coaches Gary Moeller, Lloyd Carr, Marty Schottenheimer, and Joe Gibbs. They have all had an indelible impact on his career, and his ability to scout and recommend prospects. Shemy has been a part of many championship and playoff teams, and has been able to evaluate or recommend players that have gone on to Pro Bowl careers (Charles Woodson, Ian Gold and Tom Brady, respectively), as well as inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame (Joe Montana, Marcus Allen, and Derrick Thomas, respectively).
Bruce Lund has trained thousands of professionals all over the country as a business professor, career author, speaker, and sales trainer for more than a decade. Bruce has one basic belief that trained people consistently outperform untrained people. Because of this belief, Bruce founded the widely popular 90-Day Sales Manager™ coaching program that specializes in sales onboarding and entrepreneur training. It is essentially the P90x of sales training. He was formerly a vice-president for Micheal Burt Enterprises.
Anton Goff is the Director of Athletics at traditional Big East power St. John’s University. He has also been the athletic director at Hartford University and Bowie State. Throughout his career, he also worked with the University of Maryland, Michigan State University, and Kent State University.