Dylan Bain: It’s time to reject the domestication of a manufactured society and reclaim the human wisdom that lives within our hearts. Welcome to the human revolution. I’m your host, Dylan Bain.

Tyler Skinner. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show.

Tyler Skinner: Thank you. I’m so happy to be on the show. When I saw human revolution, I was just thrilled. It was everything to me. So I’m just so happy to be here.

Dylan Bain: Oh, fantastic. Well, okay. I want to kind of key up this conversation and just, I want to get to know some of your background. *Tell us about yourself. Tell us your story. How did you end up where you are in the business world? *

Tyler Skinner: Oh, well, I am. I coined the phrase, you know, serial entrepreneur. *We say that a lot, but I don’t really like that term. I think I changed it more to multi passionate entrepreneur because I have so many interests and avenues that I’ve taken.*

I think serial entrepreneur sounds like, you know, you just didn’t figure it out and you kept doing things over and over again until you got it right. I think for me, you don’t ever get it right in entrepreneurship. You’re working on something and it’s an evolution. So you’re always changing. And so for me, it’s multi passionate because I have so many things that I’ve done or have been building blocks to where I am now.

And I’m still on that trajectory. I’m still going. So there’s going to be something else. If you and I recorded this a year from now or five years from now, it would be something different. So I think that that’s where I’m pointing that phrase multi passionate entrepreneur instead. And I think for my story, it really begins in these building block phases.

And I can only recall one particular moment in time that we all can agree was a very important pivotal shift for all of us in humanity which was March of 2020,

Dylan Bain: of course, of course.

Tyler Skinner: And that was where I want to begin because March of 2020, I was sitting at a hotel here in San Luis Obispo, California, where I’m from, where I live and where I work.

And they had a big, big event coming up. 10, 000 people are about to come to our small town. And it was a film festival and they were one of my clients. We were putting out red carpet events all week. And everybody’s sitting there at the bar kind of like planning, in planning mode and all our phones are out.

And then they said, Some guy looks over and says, wait, why is your phone pinging? Is your phone, my phone pinging? And they said, "the world’s shutting down." I said, "no, it’s not. That’s ridiculous." That was Monday. By Friday, my inbox was flooded with emails cancelling or just completely postponing all of my contracts.

*Everything that I’d worked for up until that point was gone in an instant. *And of course, I mean, naturally I felt all kinds of things. I was grieving. I started to go through all the process of grief like you would when you have a death in the family. I was, felt shame, I felt guilty, I felt sad, I felt all the things.

I screamed, I cried, I blamed, but really I just felt alone. That’s really what I, when I really got to the core of it all and I got quiet and still, I just felt really alone and isolated on the journey. Like, what do I do next? What’s next for me? How do I fix this? How do I figure this out? And I didn’t want to give up.

*I’m not the kind of person that wants to tap out.* So for me, it was, what does that look like then? And I’m also a mom of two. So that’s the other part, right? Is I have, I have these responsibilities to my family to also be show up for them and make sure everything’s okay and make sure I’m my, I’m okay. And I really wasn’t okay at the time.

I received a kind of a LinkedIn message from someone that said, "Are you doing okay?" And that’s all I needed to hear. It was the human side of it all, right? Everybody was in shift and pivot mode. Everyone’s like trying to figure out how they’re going to do the next thing and what they’re going to do with their marketing strategies and how they’re going to reach different customers and how to go online.

And all I needed to do was get quiet and get still and really get it with myself and realize that I had a death of an ego. I had a full on ego wrapped up in that business and none of it was serving me any way, shape, or form the hours, the time that everything that was wrapped up in that was not me at all.

It really was like something I needed to become. And so March, 2020 was a pivotal moment for me. It was like, this is that year that you’re going to finally discover who the heck you are and what you’re made of. And that’s how Women Making Waves came out. And I’ll go on in the conversation to explain that more, but that’s really the essence of it all, is that one LinkedIn message that just said, how are you?

I said, yes, other humans are out there, and other humans are going through this, and we all need each other. We’re in the collective, and we need each other right now. How can I bring that, all my skills, everything I’ve done in events, everything I’ve ever done in community building, everything I’ve ever done, ever, how can I bring that into one space?

Dylan Bain: Oh, I love that so much. I love the way you talked about it. It’s a grieving process, but you have this business, everything suddenly just vaporizes and now you’re left with, well, is the world okay? Am I okay? Who am I now? And I feel like that, that story, whether or not you went through COVID and came out better or went through COVID and came out worse is entirely dependent on how you answered those questions.

And it sounds like, you know, if I’m hearing you right, correct me if I’m wrong, it sounds like your, your response was no, I’m still Tyler Skinner. I’m still a mother. I’m still this amazing entrepreneurial woman who has lots of passions and lots to give. This is just now an invitation to me to pivot.

Tyler Skinner: I love that. *And I actually coined it the shivit.* I was telling everyone that we’re just going to put it together. You know, we’re in it. We’re going to call it the shivit. And really what it was Dylan for me was it was more, I had to build it. That’s what I discovered in that process. And you’re absolutely right.

Everything you just touched on, a hundred percent correct. I just, I had to find out who I was and what I was made of. And I had to step into that. Like truth that into that truth and I admit that I had been doing some things that were not serving me, that were not in my best interest or my family’s best interest, or even my community’s best interest.

To be honest, it wasn’t the path that I needed to walk. And when I finally admitted that to myself, and then I got really real with myself, I started to discover all the people around me that were also going through that. Same thing. And I was like, let’s all band together. How can we support each other? How can we start really collaborating? How can we shed all the ego? Like I was saying, all that stuff about business that we have wrapped up in things of, "I got to do this alone, or I’ve got this handled, or I’m on this." No, we just, we don’t all got it. That was really the thing I learned is being in all these spaces, all these global conversations virtually I realized we all don’t got it figured out. Like we all are going, what is this? What do we do with this? And so it made me feel like that’s where I saw the true humanity. People were seeing people’s cats in their, you know, computer screen and you got to see real life in action. You got to see people as humans behind these titles and behind these businesses and behind these things. You got to see people as they were and what they were going through. And people were just being honest and vulnerable and admitting things that they’d never probably admitted even to themselves before. And that’s where I went, "This is what’s needed right now. The world needs more of this."

Dylan Bain: Oh, there’s so much to talk about here. Do you remember during COVID there was that it went viral where this guy’s he’s like having this converse, serious conversation on CNN and his kid comes like wandering in and that’s when you realize like he’s, he staged a bed to look like a bookcase and his wife, like does it like scramble, like grabs the kid and he like pushes her away.

And I feel like that meme encapsulated what happened during COVID. Like we’re all now starting to question this because the alternate way that could have gone would be, I was actually on a call with one of the people in the C suite of the company I was working for at the time and his daughter came wandering in and he’s in the middle of this like pitch deck meeting and he picks her up and he puts her on her lap and says, Hi, this is my daughter and like introduces her to all of these people and suddenly it’s like, Oh my, like in that moment, I’m watching the CFO of this company humanize out.

He’s no longer the CFO. He’s daddy. He’s the papa, right? Like, and I, I loved that so much in that moment of covid. Covid was terrible, don’t get me wrong, and lots of different levels. But there were also some places where people were like, maybe I’ll make bread. I’ll lead into introduce my family. We all talked about our coworkers.

You talk about cats like my cat. If if he was out here with me, he’d be up here being like, hi, he loves being on camera. Mhm. And so I love that. And I love how you you’re, you’re looking at this and saying, this crucible can really transform me.

Tyler Skinner: It did.

Dylan Bain: I can really lean into this and I could really build something.

Tyler Skinner: Yeah. I needed to build it.

Dylan Bain: Yeah. So tell me, *what did you build and why did you choose that path?*

Tyler Skinner: So this goes back to the same year. I’m going to flash forward a little bit, December, 2020. And I was driving down the highway with my family and I instantly see this rig that’s set up at the iconic Madonna Inn.

And we have this beautiful hotel, the Madonna, and it’s pretty world famous for a lot of reasons, but it was built in the sixties. It’s super, super retro, amazing, amazing place. And then this giant lawn on highway one to one, which is one of our main highways through California. And I get up and there’s this rig and I go, "that’s it."

And I pull over and my whole family’s like, what are you doing? And I get off the freeway and I find myself not even thinking two thoughts about it. I signed a waiver strapped on a harness and I was up a ladder on this platform. And I’m terrified of Heights, by the way. I mean, terrified. That was one of my, one of my things that I, I really have a pause.

I don’t jump off cliffs into oceans. Like all the people that want to do those things. I’m just like, even elevators and high buildings, like all of that. I’m very terrified. So for me, that was my thing of just, I saw the things like fly high and that’s all I needed to see. It was just a sign. You know, you see the signs on the freeway.

You’re like, this is my sign. And I just got there. And the guy coaching what it was, was a trapeze rig. So circus Vargas comes to town and they couldn’t do the circus. So they had a trapeze rig set up, we were able to just try it. *Like, come try, come try to be a trapeze artist. And I thought, you know what?*

Why not? What’s going to happen anyway? I’m just going to go for it. I get in there without even thinking about it. I’m on that platform shaking. I mean shaking. And the thing was rickety anyway, because it’s just pulled together quickly. The guy says, the people that step to the edge are the ones that will do it.

If you go, if you do not take that first step, you are going back down the ladder and going home. I’ve seen it every single time. And so he gives me kind of the instructions loosely. And I’m just like, I don’t even want to think about it. I just want to go. And I, all I realized is you don’t leap off of a platform.

You let go. That’s how it works. You actually let go and you drop and your body swings. So your natural rhythm goes into this pendulum and you swing up and that’s how people get up and over. That’s how the whole thing. So three tries in. I’m there just screaming like a little girl. I mean like delight, just so excited, exhilarated, my whole body’s singing, rushing everywhere, just going, this is it.

I got so many downloads after that. I actually recorded a video right after my experience of seven minute video of my, how I felt and everything that was coming to me were lessons about life, lessons about business, lessons about this is what people need. They need this like to be shooken up. We need to be like the snow globe, just shake it up a little bit.

So that you can feel alive, that you can feel what that feels like in your body to accomplish something really big, to face your fears, to get out of your comfort zone, all of that, the letting go process and trusting. And Dylan, I kid you not the third try, there’s a guy on the other side swinging. I flipped upside down on that thing and he caught me midair.

Can you imagine that after three tries? And I’m going, I never did this in my life and I’m terrified of heights and I’m up there super high up. I know there’s a net. I know there’s a harness. So I have safety. I get that I’m protected, right? I’m cared for in that way. I’m not going to fall and break my head, but you still have that feeling of, Oh gosh, what if this thing, you know, you have all the things that go in our heads.

And I did that. And that feeling right there was everything. And I said, okay, women especially need this. I knew that I know that men and women both need this, but for me, I’m like, women like me need this. So I basically took myself as an avatar and just created what I wish existed. That’s literally, I said, this is what women need.

I know how to build communities for others. I want to build one for myself. I want to build one around my isolation, my loneliness, my feeling of this, you know, being a mom, working through stuff, being strong, figuring things out, being resilient. Like, what does that mean? What are all those things combined?

And then how we’re all feeling right now? What do we need? And so we took 10 women. On a beach and we were outside and I said, if you want to fit, if you feel safe enough, you want to come out, we can go outside and we can sit at a distance and we can figure this out. And that’s how it was started. That’s literally how women making waves was born out of that.

So for me, it was like Phoenix rising from the ashes after I lost everything to be able to have this second chance, but it was built from the inside out. So now it wasn’t built of this external validation stuff. It was built from me. It was built from love and compassion and community. It was built from that inside core of humanity out to the world.

It’s like, how do you make a business model out of that? So now it’s like figuring all that out was the challenge. Figuring that out was, For me, the next step, the next phase.

Dylan Bain: 100%. I love the, you have to take the first step. Otherwise, you’re just not going to do it. I think that there’s a lot of people who, you know, they’re so focused on the everything else.

They don’t have the faith to take that, that step. They don’t have the belief in themselves. They don’t have the belief in society. They don’t have the, they don’t have enough attachment with the world to be able to say, Yeah, I’m safe to take that step. And kudos to you. I don’t know if I could do a trapeze thing.

I’ve always wanted to test myself. I was having this conversation, actually, last night. I went out to a meeting of men here in Denver, and we were talking about, like, how some things scare you and, you know, other things seem normal. And so there were people who were talking about bungee jumping and skydiving, and I’m like, I couldn’t do that.

And they’re like, well, what weird hobbies do you have? I was like, well, I grew up scuba diving. And they’re like, really? I was like, yeah, I’ve, I’ve scuba dove in the middle of the ocean. I’ve done a night. I’ve done racks. I’ve done all sorts of stuff. And people are like turning white. Yes, when I’m like, Oh, yeah, you got on there and the shark is just asleep or they’re, they’re like, just trolling in a circle.

They’re like, you seen sharks? like, I pet sharks like they’re fine. And so it’s that edge is different for all of us. And sometimes it’s entrepreneurship. And sometimes it’s something else. So I just love that story. *So tell me more about women making waves and tell me more about what came out of that first meeting.*

You’re sitting outside, you’re in a circle and you’re talking about like, Hey, Did you know where you were going or did, was this just a, a, like spaghetti against the wall moment where we’re seeing what sticks?

Tyler Skinner: It was half and half. I think that I, like I said earlier in the conversation, I feel like we all have these building blocks.

And why I say multi passionate entrepreneur, because I’d had other businesses before that I think really, really tied in nicely to this, right? They already, I hadn’t, wasn’t starting from zero. I was starting from experience. But I just had to model it and mold it a different way. So it’s almost like there was some spaghetti to the wall experimentation because I had no idea how this particular thing was going to turn out or how these people were going to take to it or how the community was going to, you know, what were we going to do with that?

But I did know about community building. I did know About this is how people feel belonging. I did know all these things that I’ve been working on for so many years, right? What does that feel like? You want to play? Creativity? Rest? I knew these things that these elements that need to be incorporated that we’re going to make it successful in that sense.

But I just didn’t know how. And I think that’s the part of the trust. The letting gos. I knew the what and the why, I didn’t know how. I just didn’t know how to make that work together exactly. And I didn’t have to, I think that was the thing is I was allowing it to kind of be its own thing and evolve the way it wanted to go.

And the community tells you, that’s the thing is that just like they say with clients, right? The client will tell you their pain points. The client will tell you. The community tells you what’s going on, you know, what they need, what they’re looking for. And I’m just, all I did was dot connect and go, well, here’s what I can provide based on my skill set.

And the people I know around me and my resources, here’s what I can provide for that. You feel lonely, you feel like you need to get out of your comfort zone, you need to do something different. *Making waves to us*, and this is something I want to clarify, because people often ask me, like, oh, I’m not writing a book, or I’m not doing this, I’m not making waves.

It’s like, that’s not What a wave maker is to us, a woman making waves or a man making waves or anything else, anyone doing that is someone that just says, I know there’s more. I know there’s something else for me. I want this instead of this. And they’re going for that. They’re taking that leap of faith.

They’re just like, I’m ready to do this thing. And what does that look like? You know, what does that look like? Who do I need in my corner? What kind of support do I need? I need my people who are going to be there for me on this journey. This next leg of the journey requires people. And so that’s really all it is.

It’s a community built around that. And it’s getting people out of their comfort zone because I think what we, our core things are mindfulness. So you want people to get grounded, get connected themselves. So that was the thing that was missing. We were saying that’s a missing ingredient is that people aren’t present.

They’re not, it’s getting themselves to that place, right? It’s like, Oh, this is what’s really going on with me. This is what’s happening inside. This is what I’m looking for. And then it was, how do you connect others that way? Then you can share vulnerably and openly and authentically. This is really who I am.

This is what’s going on with me. And then this is what I’m looking for. And that’s really what it is. It’s super simple and it’s a lot of organic. And just from there, we’d ended up with all these ventures. We started partnering up and teaming up with all these women owned businesses around the county and in other cities, it just kept expanding and evolving from there.

So I think it really was an intuitive space that I was in. I’ve just let me see where things are at and then where are my skills match. And I know that sounds super simple in some ways, but there wasn’t this big old business plan. That’s it. Like this whole thing that came out of it is really just, I want to be there for people and I want people to show up for each other.

And I really want women to learn to show up for themselves. That was a big, big one for me.

Dylan Bain: But I feel like this is one of those moments where like you say, it’s, it really is. It’s not complicated, simple, but to somebody listening, they might be like, my God, this is terrifying. Um, like, and I feel like that’s so important with people will look at like, you know, and I see this in financial coaching, right?

I get a client that comes in and they’re like, well, you know, we go through, we look at their income and expenses. I’m like, look, you don’t have a spending problem. You have an income problem. So let’s talk about how to increase your income. They’re like, well, but I’m a W2 employee. And I was like, yeah, but I still didn’t stutter.

Let’s actually talk about like, how do you, how do you career craft? How do you look at this thing? How do you become the person who can be the manager? I always get the objections like, I don’t want this. I don’t want extra hours. I was like, you can have it all, but you have to build it. And that’s terrifying to them.

But to me, that’s a Tuesday, right? Like, that’s just how I run, I run with everything. I don’t want to be dismissive at all about like, yeah, it’s simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy. Simple doesn’t mean anything. It just means that the arts and crafts could be put on one page and that page just might be a big crayon drawing of like, start doing things.

Tyler Skinner: Yeah. Start doing things like that’s really the thing is you have to. So even with some of our programming right now, we have a mentorship program we launched last year for young women and it quickly became, "wait a minute, this is not just for young women. This is actually for women in transition." A lot of women who are leaving corporate to start their own coaching business or women that were taking these big steps in life.

Some women are going through a divorce. Some women are empty nesters. I mean, all these things were happening and they’re like, what about this pivotal moment in my life, I would love support. I would love a mentor. I would love someone to guide me through some of this process. And we just said, "okay, we have to open it, right?"

If I just stuck to this one thing and said, this is my plan, this is all we’re doing. It doesn’t allow for some of that. Organic other things to come in. And no, I did never said it was easy. It absolutely is not. And I I’m going to go with Robert Frost poem, the road less traveled, because I read that in sixth grade and I’ve never forgotten it since, because I am that person that will always take the road less traveled.

And I feel like sometimes it is harder. Sometimes it is a little bit more challenging, but for me, it’s always been worth it. It’s always come out where I’ve met the coolest people. I mean, like you, how you and I met through the storytelling school. Those are, I took that risk for myself because I bet on myself.

I’m like, look, this is a lot to take on right now, but I know this is right for me. This feels right. This is what I want to do. This is where I want to be I’m heading. And then I meet amazing people like you and Dominique. And I meet all of these great people in the group. And I feel like now I have new friends.

I have new colleagues. I have this, I have opportunities. That’s what it is for me.

Dylan Bain: 100%. Well, and I love that you’re touching on directly on this community type of thing. If you want to change your life, change your friends. And I think about even in my path, all the people that, you know, 10 years ago, I was very close to and, you know, coming to a point of, well, my friend, we’ll call him Doug, you know, Doug and I have been good friends.

We, we were in the trenches together. We have a lot of comedy taught us where the math dudes, right? Like at the teaching world. And I’m saying, I can’t teach anymore. I can’t do this. And I have to go walk this other path and him saying, "well, but it’s stable and like, it’s secure. It just, it really doesn’t matter. Like, you’re just, you’re just playing a little game. Like, it doesn’t matter that you’re, that our boss asked you to commit fraud," and realizing that like, we are now going in different directions and then finding other people and getting into graduate school and finding other people who are ambitious.

That wanted to be the best, that wanted to be so good, you couldn’t ignore them. And suddenly that becomes normal. And now you can’t imagine being anything else. And that is, I think, with the power of like Mark and Kimberly storytelling school and you and women making waves and so many other organizations of like, yeah, we’re here to serve this thing, but we’re also here to just be a tuning fork. To strike a note and let everyone else tuned to it and be able to understand that it is okay to go do this thing because it’s normal for us now.

Tyler Skinner: It’s our new normal. Yeah.

Dylan Bain: Yeah.

Tyler Skinner: We just created that. We’re like, *this is our new normal. This is what I want normal to look like. *

Dylan Bain: A hundred percent. And so I love what you’re doing with that because I think that it’s really waking women up to be able to say, well, hey, I can go be a coach or I do have a gift to give and I don’t have to be quiet.

And men have the same issues, but we have men, at least in our starting to form groups to help men with the same thing. And I feel like there’s nothing wrong with those single focus groups because you pick a niche and you go with it, right?

Tyler Skinner: Well, you know, it’s the next step is us all coming together. You and I have both talked about this previously, and that’s where I see it going is that think about any organization as an ecosystem, even a company, a family, everything, right?

It’s all that made up of what? Humans. I mean, we all have our feelings, our emotions. We’re bringing a lot to the table every day. We’re in it every day. And so it’s, why would you think that’s not a big, important, important component to what you’re doing? I know there’s like Peter Drucker’s famous quote is like culture eats strategy for breakfast.

It’s like a management guru and it’s like, yeah, because your culture is everything. So that’s what we’re creating is we’re cultivating a culture where it is positive, where it is uplifting, where it is supportive, where it is about collaboration and co creation. And those are the things that I think that women traditionally have been not accustomed to a lot because there’s a lot of competition going on and there’s a lot of, "well, it’s got to be, I’ve got to do this lone wolf style. I have to do this by myself. And I don’t feel like I have support." And they have a hard time asking for support or receiving support. When somebody says, "here, I want to help you," they have a hard time saying, "Oh yeah, no, I’ve got this." It’s like, no, you, maybe you don’t. And that’s okay. And I think that’s the whole part of it is like giving and receiving and learning how to do that.

*And the next step I see in the evolution is all of us coming together and really recognizing our value.* You know, and that’s the thing that when making waves, it sets it apart because people often don’t say, oh, is it just you complaining about men and also, no, that is none of it. That’s not even the purpose.

*The purpose is for women to step into their light and their power, for women to just feel comfortable in who they are and be happy with themselves and just know that whatever they’re doing is right for them. That’s the right timing, the right thing, the right choice. And they just need to trust themselves.*

And that’s it. And then I think by doing that, that ripples out into the community, into their families, into everywhere else. And it’s felt by everyone around them that, Oh, wow. She’s like in a different energy. She feels good. Now she’s on a good track. She’s like taking her vitamins and doing, you know what I mean?

You just feel good about yourself. And I think that’s the main thing is that confidence boost. And I, I know that men go through this too. And that’s why I’m saying that I see us all kind of doing these little groups, but I know that that’s where it’s headed. We’re all kind of coming together and converging.

Dylan Bain: What I love most about this conversation, you already alluded to it. It’s like, yes, you’re this entrepreneur, but you’re also a mother. You’re also a wife, right? You’re also these other things, and it has been my observation in the business world, and I think this was just a byproduct. I don’t think there was an evil conspiracy, but there’s just a byproduct of how we did this, that when the women entered the workforce, they were like, Well, how do I do this? Well, we just copy the men. So a lot of women gave up their feminine in order to try to be more masculine, and it didn’t work well. And where I sit, some of the most effective, most powerful leaders at fortune 100 companies that I’ve worked with that are female are also ones who lead from the feminine and they’re leading from this place where you like, you step in, this is a C suite level officer.

And you’re like, Wow, this is radically different and I really like it. So I love that because I think that that’s where the power comes in. When we embrace what is essentially ourselves and lead from that position of power, that then gives us the polarity to actually come together and create something amazing. And so I, I love this.

Tyler Skinner: It’s a revolution, honestly, Dylan.

Dylan Bain: I would agree with that. Well, and I think we’re starting to see this, right? Like you see the rise of some people are very on board with this idea of collaborating and cooperating and other people are like railing against it of like, "no, we can’t go back."

And I just kind of like, I tune that out. I just look at it and go, how have we as humans interacted for the majority of human history? Oh, yeah, it’s always been this collaborative thing, like if it’s like the trad wife movement when people are like, well, you got a trad wife. Was like, if you actually want to be a trad wife, you go back to what sort of men and women were always a cooperative economic unit, bringing talents and running homes and running businesses together that changed in the early 20th century.

But for the majority of human history, it’s always been a collaborative thing, and it’s been very powerful. I mean, just look around and look, see what we built.

Tyler Skinner: Exactly. It is very powerful. When people recognize there was a, a woman I met recently and she said, I used to do this group called know your value and it was bringing men and women in the corporate world together.

This was years ago and I think that those people that are innovative that way, they’re doing that way ahead of time when the rest of us are just catching up, you know, in that sense, I, this is what I love that you’re doing with the show and want to talk about these things. It’s like this revolution of humans because we are supposed to be evolving.

I mean, that is like our literal Purpose in life is to constantly be growing and evolving. And it’s, it’s just, if you’re not, you’re stagnant, you’re dead and there’s nothing, right? You’re not doing that. And a doctor friend told me that she goes, you’re nothing, no adversities happening. What is that?

There’s nothing going on with you? Then you’re flatlined. So you want to be living. And that’s part of the experience. This experience that we’re having is figuring all those things out is figuring out where, where we all fit and that we are actually better together than separate. And I think that’s what I’m talking about with COVID.

I only bring up COVID not to like dredge the past up and all that. *I use COVID as a marker and an example of just where that was a raising consciousness where people could actually say, okay, this is where I can make a shift. *Those, that kind of situation allowed us on a global level to all humanize ourselves and say, okay, we are actually all in this together and we need each other now more than ever.

And that’s what I’m trying to say now is going in these groups, is these groups now can start to see I want to collaborate. My LLC is connected communities. I made that name long before COVID. And I thought it was really hilarious because I used to, I was met with a lot of opposition, Dylan, like you were describing.

I was met with so much opposition when I would try to get groups and nonprofits and all kinds of entities to collaborate. I said, if you just shared the marketing, shared this, shared that, shared resources, share, you get a bigger pool, you get a bigger impact. And they would all go, "Nope. We do it this way. This is our way. This is the way." And they were all very isolated. COVID happens. And now everyone’s like connection, community, collaborate. I hear all the words, the buzzwords and I go, okay, okay. Now everyone gets it. Everybody’s like, we’re all on the same page. I like it. So I love that because now I can, when I say something, I don’t look like the odd man, like the odd duck, you know, everyone’s kind of like, all right, she’s, she’s there doing this thing.

We want to get behind this. It feels really good just to be able to have those conversations very candidly and honestly, without any of that explanation about why it’s important.

Dylan Bain: Yeah, and that was one thing that I think that came out of COVID is that in my worldview, we’ve been losing connection for about 70 years.

We went to the suburban experiment. It’s failed. It’s not economically viable. It’s led to a lot of isolation. This is why everyone has therapists and needs to be on supplements. And I think COVID, when we all had to go into our boxes, we ripped away the fake connections that we had built to try to make it look okay.

You know, the office culture and like, you know, all the, you know, the commuting and where you’re having a one way conversation with the radio host, we lost all of that. And then suddenly we’re looking around and being like, I want to spend more time with people. And I think his parents, and this, I don’t know if this happened for you, but it certainly happened for me.

I suddenly have more time with my kids. I get to hang out with my kids and, you know, I’d be, you know, maybe my lunch break, I’d come out and, you know, my, my daughter would be like, "hey, you want a color?" And I was like, "I thought you’d never ask." And so I got to have these experiences as a father that I would not have had, had COVID not happened.

And so I love what you’re talking about with the connected communities. I think you’re so right that people have started to wake up and be like, wait, we are actually isolated. And I don’t think that’s good for us. Right. And people are now starting to stand up and say like, Oh, I want something different.

Tyler Skinner: Yeah, I want some difference. What is different look like? And then the thing I think* I want to mention too that’s really important is access.* So my thing was take it to the people like let’s make women have not have to spend 10, 000 to go to Bali to retreat to be able to get this kind of healing or this kind of feeling of connection or be able to do these kind of modalities or just learn about themselves and not in journaling, whatever they were doing, right? You go on these retreats and you always see these cool things. Everyone’s like, Oh, I really wish I’d go to Costa Rica, but it’s so expensive. It’s like, you don’t have to go to Costa Rica.

You can do that in your own backyard. You can do that in your home. You can do that every day. Little by little, you can add these little practices in and you can get that same feeling and that same thing from them. And that’s what I found was the big differentiator is like, let’s do that here. Let’s do it on a Sunday afternoon in our own community for three hours.

And let’s have women just take three hours out of their day for themselves. So they can just have self care and get some self awareness and be connected to other women that are doing that same thing. And they make friendships and they figure out," okay, I’m not the only one doing this journey by myself."

And then they’re out there doing that in the world. They can go to Bali still, but this is, you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to spend that money. You can be right here doing this for a lot less. And it allows people to say, I could take out that time for myself. I can invest in myself that way. If it’s a little bit each month or a little bit at a time.

Dylan Bain: Yeah. Well, that is, I think, one thing that a lot of people get caught up on is like the cost of things. I know in my own, my own healing journey. Again, during COVID where some of the things in my marriage that I maybe was ignoring suddenly, like it, it accelerated the timeline on, on those fractures for me and splitting.

And so suddenly like, Oh, well, I need to find some place to figure this out, going to an event and, you know, it was very affordable. And then that kind of, you know, because I’m a dude and dudes tend to do this of like, "Oh, we’re in a healing journey. I’m going to go real hard in the pain. I’m gonna read all the books on you and I’m going to read all the self help stuff."

And I’m just like, "I’m just going to Hoover that like a sneeze on a counter," and just, and that’s both good and bad. But one of the things I learned real quickly where the people will be like, if you want to go deeper. It’s 30, 000 and we’re going to go to, you know, some Colombian jungle somewhere and figure this out.

And, you know, looking at me like, "well, do I have to do that?" And then realizing like, Oh no, it’s right around me. Everything around me is what I need. It’s the men who are within a walk from my place that are going to be the healing pieces. I have a friend, a mentor. Her name is Kimberly Rose. I’m trying to get her out of the podcast too.

She’s a nature based psychologist and therapist. And she always talks about how we tend to focus on what’s out there and look at the mountains and say, I need to get to the top and she’s like, but no, it’s not. It’s your prayer mat. Focus on your prayer mat where you’re at right now, where you’re grounded right now and get all of the energy and healing off your prayer mat.

And then once you’ve done that, then go to the mountain. But for right now, look, and that’s what I think is you’re talking about is like, we have this prayer mat right around us in our communities where we were, we’re not tapping on it and we can.

Tyler Skinner: And we can, they’re right next to us. And that’s what I would always talk about in my former business and everything else was that person is actually right next to you.

And most of the times we look to the exterior for all these big answers, like, this person’s an expert, this person’s written 10 books, this person, sometimes that person is what you just said, it could be your neighbor, could be your own kids. I mean, that was what COVID did for me. *My kids became my teacher in so many ways.*

And I flipped the script on that on parenting and allowed them to kind of lead. And I was watching, I mean, yeah, there’s parameters, there’s guidelines. We’re not letting them have yes days every day, you know, do whatever they want, but they have, they have their Absolute, they are showing me kind of what they need and what’s going on and we have a, we have better conversations as a result of it.

There’s more trust between us. There’s a lot of things that have come out of that that I feel really proud of, you know, and I, and I’m also able to be more present. So when I feel myself, Getting frustrated. My daughter had a really bad situation happen at school. I easily, old me would have been like freaking out on her.

Let’s call the principal, you know, doing all of that whole like spin out thing. And then she’s watching like, how are you reacting to this mom? And I have a freak out. I instead took some breaths and calm down. And I was like, "okay, tell me about that. I want to know your whole story. You tell me. Okay. What happened? Walk me through it." And when she did, I discovered in that process of just taking a little extra time that it was actually, I made 10, 000 assumptions about the situation that weren’t even there and I would have probably triggered something calling the principal or doing something else that probably wouldn’t have been good, like a great result for her or for anyone else.

And it would have targeted her at school in a lot of ways with the other kids. So I think it was just one of those things that It was that moment I felt really proud as a mom where I’m like, if I could slow down for two seconds and just really let her just tell me what was going on, then I figured out a method where I let her lead.

I go, who do you want to talk to about this? Which teacher, which adult you need to talk to someone about this? Which, who are we picking? And then she got to lead that conversation and she got to decide on her terms. And it was a really, really great moment to see. I saw her confidence build and I saw a lot of things happen where she felt empowered in that moment, and that was a true moment for me where I was like, okay, proud mom moment. I did a good job. A

Dylan Bain: hundred percent. I feel like that’s, you know, something that comes out of when you start doing work on yourself is you start looking at it and be like, Oh wait, I need to actually bring this to my kids as well.

You know, one of the things I had to learn was curiosity when my wife is upset. Not get be in problem solving mode because, you know, that’s the stereotypical thing of like, men are always trying to solve problems. Well, yeah, because that’s a big part of our role, but also learning how to interact with people and what’s important to them and stop and be like, wait, hold on a second. I need to listen. I need to be curious and then bringing that curiosity, that same curiosity to your kids. "Hey, I can see you’re upset. Can you tell me what’s coming up for you?" And then they tell you, and then you, you validate them and be like, man, that’s really hard. That really sucks. You know, it’s okay to be sad about that.

And to watch how my, my children have grown. And then, you know, as I’ve taken those same lessons and then brought them into, into my profession, like, "Hey, what keeps you up at night?" And we’re like, well, I, I never know where my money goes, man. That’s really hard. Yeah. Like, yeah, it is. Yeah. It’s like, okay, yeah, really, the more I focus on the human, unless I focus on the numbers, the better, I better, I get it, everything I’m doing.

Tyler Skinner: Exactly. Because it’s the behavior of the human that’s driving all that, of like how they’re spending or how they’re saving or what they’re doing or what they’re using. It’s our behavior. So it really isn’t about the money per se. It’s really about the person. And so when you’re listening to someone and you’re just validating their, their experience and saying like, "yeah, this is really hard, but here’s the good news, we can do something about that."

Or would you like it to be not as hard? Would you like it to be this way? And you can figure out you have those skills to help somebody be able to navigate that. And that’s why they’re hiring you. That’s why they’re working with you. And that’s what I feel like when people come to me as a client per se, and women want to work with me one on one, that’s what they’re doing.

They’re saying, okay, I see something in you, you seem fearless. And I often have to tell them it’s not about being fearless. It’s about the absence of fear is not that I’m fear. I have a lot of fears. I have fears like my fear of heights, but I do it anyway. And that’s the part that I think is the differentiators.

I just do it anyway. And then I allow myself to feel them process what that is like for me, right? What that experience is good, bad, or ugly. And I just go that and be honest, like this was not a good experience or it was a good experience. And then I work through those things and I tweak things and I figure it out.

Right. And I find those people that are going to support me and fill in the gaps because we all have gaps, the gaps where I’m not, "this is not my forte, or this is not my zone of genius. This is not what I love to do. I need to be putting my energy into this." And once we know that about ourselves, I mean, we can take off, we can do amazing, incredible things.

And then building that with other people just is more fun also. I mean, truthfully, it really is more fun when everybody’s putting a piece of that puzzle in. It’s like doing, you know, when we were kids, we all sat around and we did that, right? We built forts or we built whatever we were doing. We were all creating something together.

And I kind of, I was looking at that going as adults, can we not do that too? Can we not all play on the playground with something we create our own play and you’re this character and you’re this character, we just kind of put it together and it comes out a lot better than if we did it by ourselves.

Dylan Bain: A hundred percent. Well, and I love that you mentioned the play there too, of particularly for men. I think men really get focused on this thing of like, when I was a child, I had childless things and now that I’m an adult, I had to give them up and it’s like, that’s not actually true. Your inner child is really important to your business.

And I, I actually had this experience where I had a couple of really disastrous weeks. I’m like suddenly in this hole, like I’m like, I can’t do this. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m incompetent. Like really bad self talk. And I was like, "wait, hold on a second. I need a moment to like actually just refresh."

I’m freaking out because my inner child is now suddenly doesn’t feel safe. And so like, What am I going to do? Well, I love airplanes. So I took, I went on a date with myself to the aerospace museum and like geeked out about airplanes and just like let myself just go like, "Oh, let’s look at this. Oh my God, there’s this jet over here."

And then let myself talk to people in the museum of like, "did you know about this one? Let me tell you about that." And like, what ended up happening was I had this whole group of people who were following me around because I would tell them all these facts about these planes that I knew so much from when I was a kid.

And I walked out of there and I felt so confident. I felt like I could take on the world that like I was this unified force of nature Simply because I took time to acknowledge my whole self and then cater to that and then bring that out with me

Tyler Skinner: Yeah, and you took that time. That’s the whole thing is you even took time for yourself just having space Where you’re not doing the business stuff or you’re in the grind so to speak and you just take the pause I mean, that’s one of the things we say women making waves a lot is there’s power in the pause. There’s a huge power in that.

There’s also power in the void, when you don’t know what’s next or what’s going on, and you just sit with that. I think that’s the hardest thing for people. It’s like, I don’t want to sit in that. It’s uncomfortable. Yeah, it is. I mean, that’s, that is the purpose, because once you get through that discomfort, and it doesn’t take 15 years on a mountain in Tibet to figure that out, meditating.

I mean, that’s not what we’re saying here. You can do that in five minutes. For some people it’s like shower time or the car ride or whatever it is. And I love that you did that for the aerospace museum because it’s like, that was you enjoying something that you love, and then you got out of your head and you got into your heart space.

You dropped into like, this is what I love, this is who I am. And that allowed you to open up to something else as you went back to your work. You might have seen something differently. Something else popped up that you weren’t expecting.

Dylan Bain: Yeah. I would love your opinion on this. This is random shower thoughts.

Tyler Skinner: Is it how Rome was built?

Dylan Bain: I schedule that for 10 o’clock every morning. I’ve already been there today. Uh, this is more of a shower thought type of thing. If you’re familiar with *shower thoughts*, it’s a subreddit where people like have random thoughts in the shower. I was thinking about that this morning of like, why is that?

And I think it’s because when you’re in the shower and you’re standing there naked and the water’s coming down your face, like you have a moment to pause and like nobody expects anything from you. There’s no pressure. There’s no nothing. Like it’s this one place where you’re completely isolated and just can be fully in yourself and you have the water in your body.

So you’re fully in your body too. And then I think like, then the weird things come up. Like, you’re like, why is it this this way? Or like, I think that’s why. Because they’ve actually created, that’s the one, it’s like a little rain closet, where you just separate yourself from the world and now suddenly you have access to all of you.

Tyler Skinner: Yes. And no one’s like you said, no one’s interrupting except for me, because my puppy comes in and stands at the shower. So I get interrupted. But I just think that most of the time it is that. It is that, those quiet moments with yourself are where you can be your full self. Like you said, the quiet moments, but you need to create those and they don’t have to be huge.

They don’t have to be this thing. I mean, people get are so mistaken about meditation and mindfulness and all that stuff. They think it has to be easier sitting there doing 10, 000 ohms and you have to spend hours. It’s not that. You can do that very quickly, like in the shower and have a download. Something and come to you and go, Oh my gosh, that’s it.

I was this thing. And then now I’ve, I’ve unlocked what I needed. That’s what I need to go do.

Dylan Bain: The meditation thing is really interesting. I was having a discussion with a client a couple of weeks ago and I was like, part of the *process of meditation* is just learning, learning about yourself. And he’s like, I sit on the meditation mat.

I’ve light the candles and I was like. Yeah, okay. I already see the problem here. Where do you feel centered? He’s like, uh, in a park. I was like, Hey, go throw on some noise canceling headphones and just go sit in the park and just just let yourself be blank. And he’s like, but then then all these thoughts come up.

And I was like, yeah, those that’s you, you’re showing up. And he’s like, well, meditation is supposed to be this, you know, clearing space. I was like, no, no, it’s not. Sometimes it’s, it’s like walking into the monkey cage in the zoo. It’s just a concocted of weird things. And that’s okay. Yeah.

Tyler Skinner: I love that. I love that you’re thinking that way for people and telling them, go to your place.

Like, what is your place that you love to meditate? Like, where do you love to be? And for you, it could be walking around the aerospace museum. You know, that could have been met. That’s a meditative moment. That you’re just walking around looking at planes and you’re in that, you’re just fully present in that moment.

Dylan Bain: Yeah, the meditative spot that I’ve been in recently is putting on my rucksack and I’ve got 60 pounds of steel in the bag. And then just, like, I’ll drive out to a trail here in Colorado where I know there won’t be anyone. And I put that rucksack on and I just go. I listen to the wind, I listen to the land and like all sorts of stuff.

I have been walking around and then now suddenly I’m sitting on the ground and I’m just like crying. And I’ve had, I’ve been walking and like suddenly I’m laughing and like, that’s a meditative part of this thing too. And I feel like in the business world, that kind of happens as well, where when you, you resource yourself and you’re, you’re open, you suddenly find like things that are not quote unquote normal.

And it’s like, but we all, we started these business. We wanted to be making waves. You’re not making waves by being the cookie cutter drone. You’re making waves by allowing yourself to be fully here and fully presence as your whole self.

Tyler Skinner: Yeah. And think about the ocean in and of itself. Like that was actually my inspiration of a lot of it was just that idea of, because we do live by the ocean and I just would, that’s where I like to go.

That’s where I like to go. I stare out at the way I just stare at the horizon and stare out there and just see what’s out there. And usually that is the idea, right? As if it’s a stormy gloomy day, the way it’s just, the waves are changing and shifting all the time. Tides are going different directions.

Like the currents, it’s all happening and it never is the same. Never any, any given moment. It could be the same different days, different times of the day. And that’s what I felt like waves or energy. So it’s just going in and out. It’s just that flow of sometimes I tell people *it’s a turtle effect*. I go, sometimes you poke your head out and then you go back in.

Sometimes you poke it out. Like you have these moments of and their cycles and there’s all kinds of stuff. You were talking about your nature based psychologist. It’s like, yeah, that yeah. I mean, look at nature. Nature informs us of a lot of things that are going on. The way that animals operate, the way that all of these things happen throughout the year, the seasons, all of those things play a role.

And I think that people always dismiss that and go, "Oh, that’s really witchy or that’s woo woo." I disagree. I think that that’s just, I mean, how do we, as humans we’ve evolved with this, right? But have we adapted? Have we learned? We created shoes or we built shelters this way. I mean, this is what we’ve done that we’ve been able to be with nature and figure that out.

And I think that that’s something we’ve kind of forgotten as people go back to nature to go ground, like you were saying, your rucksack or getting on the trail and being listening to the wind or being out in the elements. And it’s just that we’re not disconnected from nature. We just forgot that we are connected to nature.

That’s really the main thing.

Dylan Bain: We’re never in nature. We are in nature.

Tyler Skinner: Exactly. Just sitting there. You’re like, wow, I’m watching a sunset. How many people love to just sit and watch a sunset, stare for an out, watch the sun actually go down completely. A lot of people do. A

Dylan Bain: hundred percent. It, this reminds me, I, you were in the financial coaching practice.

I always thought like, I always start off with like money’s emotional. Like I’m an accountant by trade. I love my spreadsheets. My spreadsheets don’t count in personal finance. That’s just how this works. Yes, we get there, but that’s not the point. I had one person, he was just, he was so wrapped up in like tracking every cent and everything had to get exactly to zero.

I told him, I was like, you know, all right, you know, at the end of every session, I always give homework, you know of what they need to be doing in between sessions and he was like, all right, I’m ready. Like I’ve learned, I took this class in Excel, I’m ready to do it. And I was like, your task is to find the largest mountain you possibly can in your area.

And he was in a more or less flat state. I was like, find the tallest peak, drive out there and I want you to go up there. I want you to walk up to the top of it. I want you to sit down and I want you to stay there for two hours and ask yourself one question. "Does this mountain give a shit about my finances?"

He went up there. I get this text message like a week later going, I fucking hate you. And I was like, what? And I texted him back. I was like, you’re welcome.

Tyler Skinner: So he did it and there you go.

Dylan Bain: He did it. He did it in the next session. We’re sitting there and he was like, I get why you made me do that. He’s like, "I realized at the end of the day, the precision doesn’t count. Like at the end of the day, I’m, I’m here to live my life. I need you to teach me to do that." And I was like, great. So now let’s actually start talking about the emotional side of money, because if you want to get that squared, you have to be right in your heart, otherwise it’s going to rebel. And I feel like that’s such a powerful thing.

When you’re talking about the ocean of the energy coming in and the energy coming out, you can also just go there and be like, this ocean does not care about me. It was here before I was here.

Tyler Skinner: Yeah.

Dylan Bain: Yeah. Yeah. I love that.

Tyler Skinner: And when you’re in the ocean, which you like to scuba dive, so, you know, cause you’ve been out in the middle of the ocean.

I love to snorkel. I’ve been out in the ocean too. Not that scuba diving, but I do love that. And I, I feel that, you know, when you feel the currents or you feel that, and then you just go, I’m, you’re bobbing around out there. You’re like this is gonna take me wherever it’s. I mean, I’m not in control here.

I’m not in control of this at all. And I think that’s where we have to let go. And I think that you’re right. Spreadsheets are important. And that’s a great reference to this, to the business side is spreadsheets are important. Those rails, the guardrails, I think are important. The foundational pieces because they give us like for that, for me, it’s like just giving you that tool to use, but it’s, you cannot become the tool. And I let tell me, we’ll be wary of becoming the tool, you know, don’t let the tool dominate everything that you’re doing because really what your client needed and you were describing, and what my clients often need is no, you need to actually go do this other thing over here, which is go sit with yourself or go do this thing or go jump off a trapeze platform, you know, or go do something like that.

And then we can talk about how you’re going to start this business or how you’re going to do this thing, right? Or how this is going to get lit up. It’s really not about the tools. The tools are there and we can work on that. Absolutely. It’s really about you. You are the guide. You are the driving force.

You have to inspire yourself and especially in entrepreneurship. I often tell people that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. So if you’re not constantly working on these pieces of taking the breaks and the pauses and going and doing things that are fun and creative or getting yourself out of your comfort zone and allowing yourself to keep working on this stuff for yourself to stay motivated and stay, stay inspired.

It’s not going to happen like that’s where you close up. You close down, you shut down, you break down actually.

How does that serve anyone?

Dylan Bain: Exactly, exactly. You can’t, I mean, there’s, there’s tons of adages. You can’t pour from a cup that isn’t full. And you know, you’re the, the best gift you can give to the world is a fully resourced you. On some levels, and I, in my work with men, I’ve seen this happen a lot where they, they don’t believe it. And until like, and this is where I’ll say, it was like, "I’m coaching you to, to help you get better at business, so we’re just going to sit here and we’re just going to breathe for the next 15 minutes." And they’re like, but, but I need a strategy.

And it was like, yeah, you need to be resourced. So that’s the strategy. Well, how do I resource? Do I take another supplement? And I was like, no, you cannot bypass this.

Tyler Skinner: Nope.

Dylan Bain: Like this, this is actually not optional.

Tyler Skinner: Awesome. There’s no magic pill. You don’t bypass it. And I love that you’re doing that. And I, that’s what we are, that’s what this human revolution is about. That’s why I love this title. I love what you’re doing. I think this is what it is. We are all humans together in this and arm in arm, literally doing this. And I think that you’re right, the niches and the pockets and the little groups and communities are necessary for like minded individuals to come together and do this kind of thing where it’s very specific to them and they feel safe and they feel comfortable doing that.

Right, but at some point, we all have to realize that. Okay, we have to stretch a little beyond that and also go to the next level, which is all of us doing it together. And feeling safe and feeling comfortable and feeling powerful in our own right, right as ourselves, but then being our full selves and present in that with everybody together. That’s the next step.

Dylan Bain: 100%. I want to keep talking for like next three hours, but I think that’s a great place for us to call this one until the next time we’ll have you on. But if people are listening to this and they’re like, I need more Tyler Skinner in my life. Where can they go to find more about you?

Tyler Skinner: Oh, I love that. Someone actually said being with Tyler’s like eating something delicious. It’s also good for you. Like my favorite quote of all time. Um, yes, I would love to connect with anyone who’s listening to the show and wants to connect, even just ask a question, anything learn more about women making waves.

It’s women hyphen making hyphen waves. com. Or you can find us on Instagram at women. making. waves. Women. making. waves. That’s it. It’s like, there’s no. com on instagram. That’s it. Those are the places I like to play.

Dylan Bain: We’ll get that linked up in the show notes for people who want to find you. Tyler, thank you so much for coming on.

Tyler Skinner: Thank you, Dylan. This was awesome. Thanks

Dylan Bain: for listening. The conversation doesn’t stop here. You can find me on all the social media platforms at The Dylan Bane. And you can sign up to get updates on workshops, events, and more at DillonBain. com.