Talking Head | Tim Storey

27 Aug Talking Head | Tim Storey

Scene: HOLLYWOOD, East West Studios – with Tim Storey and Sally Colon-Petree.

Sally: We’re here with Tim Storey who is an author, speaker, and life coach to stars like Robert Downey, Jr., Kanye West – and now Oprah?
Tim: We’re friends.

I loved the interview you did with Oprah. I thought it was phenomenal and I love that she pulled a lot of your one-liners and called them tweetable moments. One of those tweetable moments was – and I love this line – ‘Today’s decisions are tomorrow’s realities’.
Yes, because here’s what happens. People want to do big things in life, but it just doesn’t happen overnight. We make decisions every day. A decision is a choice or a selection, but today’s decisions are tomorrow’s realities. Start exercising today, you won’t be chubby in three months.

I love that. Did you know as a little boy, with your afro – because I saw the photo – that you were destined for success?
I knew I was destined for more than I saw around me, and I think that’s a key for people. Being raised in East LA, we didn’t see much. But what happened is that I began to become educated but also exposed. Education and exposure can change a person’s life. They took me to Disneyland at age eight. I’d never seen anything like it. Everything was so clean. Tomorrowland, Frontierland, Adventureland, all these lands I’d never seen [laughs], exposure hit little Timmy with the afro. I said, “This is me. I’m going beyond.”

Tell me the difference of the mentality of people who are successful and the people who are never successful.
Time Magazine just did an issue of the 100 most influential people. Here’s what they found. They had an uncommon work ethic. People who do well in life, they work their land. They had uncommon plans. See, some people, their plans are too small. Uncommon plans – they had uncommon friends. They partnered with the right people, so they are uncommon thinkers. People who do well are not standard thinkers, normal thinkers, regular thinkers – they think in an uncommon manner.

Beyond the norm. So you’re going outside of what most people do in your thinking?
Right. What happens to most people is that, in their house when they’re kids, the standard is an eight-foot ceiling. And you’ve been overseas. You’ve even been to Africa. Some of the huts, the ceiling is low. The lower the ceiling, all of a sudden you feel sequestered. You feel tied in. Life wants to extend your ceiling, raise your roof, and cause you to look beyond.

You say that people get the ‘shout’ knocked out of them. Can you explain that?
When we are kids, we have a shout to us. You and your family, your sister I know… I doubt if your mother came in your room as a kid and said, “Sally, pump up the volume.” No, she said, “Shh.” Right?

Exactly. Yes.
“Quiet.” Everywhere you went as a kid. “Quiet” – because kids have volume. They have a shout. It’s an inward shout. But then we get disappointed in life. Then we have distractions. Then we have things that don’t work, and life begins to knock the shout out of us, but we can get our shout back.

So who – and this is the big question – who motivates Tim Storey?
I am motivated by people’s lives. I read two biographies a month. I just read one about Gianni Versace. Before that, Armani. Now, I’m reading Bob Fosse. I want to know about people’s lives. I’m inspired by David Bowie, by Mick Jagger, Mother Teresa, Lady Diana. Two biographies a month motivates me, stirs me up about somebody else’s life.

Wow. I know that people who are fascinated by celebrity always think that celebrities do things differently from regular people. Is that true? Because you deal with celebrities all the time.
The interesting thing is, is that everybody has problems. So we all have problems, but if you are a celebrity, everything is amplified. So if you are on Scandal, and you have a scandal [laughs], now we know it on all these shows. Now there are all these outlets. There used to be Rona Barrett back in the ‘60s, and maybe Rona Barrett would talk about somebody and write about it. Now, there are about 50 outlets, so that very quickly your scandal becomes a scandal. So what happens when I deal with celebrities, I always tell them, “Let’s bring your challenge right here. Because it’s being amplified, but let’s deal with it right here in front of us.”

Is there currently, a celebrity or someone who you would love to meet, and maybe coach?
I would say Prince. I like Prince. I’ve been in the room with Prince, and I like the way he thinks. He’s outside the box. I would like to talk with him, stir him up, learn from him. Prince would be a good one.

What do you say to someone whose life has lost purpose, and they’re trying to figure out how to get it back? For instance, stay-at-home moms who gave everything to their kids. Now, they’re empty nesters. They have no idea what to do with their life now.
If you’ve lost your way, you have to go back to your first voice. That’s what I call it, the first voice. When you’re a child your dream talks to you. Dreams have a voice. Little girls say, “I want to be a ballerina. I want to be a school teacher. I want to be a missionary.” Your dream is talking to you. Little boys say, “I want to be Superman, Spider-Man. I want to be a doctor.” Your dream has a voice. So go back to the original voice, which I call the voice of innocence. See, what happens to us as we get older – as you know, Sally – all of a sudden, later in life, somebody tells you it can’t happen. Or challenges in your life say it can’t happen. So now you have multiple voices talking to you. It could even be a negative parent, a negative sister or brother, an ex. Go back to your original voice. And I say it this way. The real you makes a demand on the you that you become. Let me say that again. The real you, your voice, makes a demand on the you that you become, and it says, “Hey, rise and up and do you.”

Now that you’ve interviewed celebrities, flown across the country, spoken in front of hundreds of thousands of people, written a lot of books. Where do you go from here?
I think it’s more of the same. I feel like I did back when I started, and I was 20 – twenty years of age, motivating people all over the world. I’ve done this in 70 countries now. Now, people are just paying more attention, so I’m going to do more of the same. The guy at 7/11 who is struggling, Tim Storey’s talking to you. The celebrity up here in Beverly Hills, I’m talking to them. I’m talking to your son. I’m talking to your daughter. I’m stirring people up, waking them up, more of the same. It’ll be sheer TV. It’ll be radio. It’ll be Focus TV, more of the same. Let’s help people up.

Who inspires Tim Storey?
I am so inspired by Mother Teresa, and I love Mother Teresa. She’s in heaven now, but look what she did. People can look at her and say, “Hey, she’s just barely over five feet. She’s just this normal lady.” Starts in India, a nun trying to change people, inch by inch, one by one, she changed her world. She changed the lives of millions of people because it wasn’t just the thousands in the orphanages, but she inspired so many people. Mother Teresa is my hero. Not all of
us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
And that’s how she thought. Some people think great is always grand, but great is a good word. Great is helping a cause. Great is calling your mother when she’s ill. That’s great. That’s Mother Teresa great.
It doesn’t take much. Seeing somebody on the street who seems kind of sad, just saying, “How are you doing today?” Or touch, I think touch is so important. Hugs, letting people know you love them, it goes such a long way. It doesn’t have to be a huge thing. I don’t think doing things for people should be an event. It should be a lifestyle. If you’re in that giving-back lifestyle, it’s happening all the time. It’s nodding to a person that looks down or saying, “Hey, you look great.” It’s a lifestyle. It’s not an event. I always say that if everyone does just a little bit, together we can accomplish a lot.

What is your ultimate goal in life?
What I do, my vision is to see somebody else’s vision come to pass. And what I mean by that is, so many people, they have greatness inside of them, but no one has really come in with the skills to pull that person out. That’s my gift – so my vision is to see their vision come to pass. That’s my vision.

How do you spread yourself out? So many people need what you have to offer. How do you spread yourself out?
You know what’s beautiful about the world we live in today? Look at Focus TV. Look at Focus Magazine. Look at all the outlets that I can just do this interview, and it can go to thousands of people. The next thing you know, it can go to tens of thousands and possibly millions of people, because that quickly things can go viral.

How do people find you?
We have an incredible website timstorey.com. It will open you up to a whole giant world. We have free life-coaching, books they can get, videos they can get.

timstorey.com