Vision Pros Live Podcast
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All things podcasting with Tom Fox and Jackson Calame.
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Where are you from?
So I was born in Houston, spent my formative years in the Megalopolis and Cultural Center of Central Texas, Bryan College Station. Practiced law in Houston for 40 years and a couple of years ago I moved out to the hill country. So other than four years of college up north, I'm a native Texan.
So you're somewhat Texan, yeah. A native Texan, of course. Born and raised in San Antonio myself. So this is, this is the place to be. For all those, all you're listening in, you probably already have your bags packed to move here. We're like the fastest growing state right now. And it is, it is a never-ending construction scene as well at this time if you're on our highways. So how do you guys, how are you guys doing with the, the construction out there in Kerrville? I gotta ask, because everywhere else it's just constant motion.
Over the past 15 years, Kerrville has had between 0.9% and 1.1% growth. So all of the growth you hear about in the great state of Texas has not reached Kerrville.
Wow, that is interesting because Kerrville's beautiful.
Kerrville is beautiful. It has less population than it had 20 years ago. But the reason there's no construction is the hilly nature of the hill country. That, the part of the hill country you live in is relatively less hilly. And out here, yeah. And out here, you can certainly build a house, but it's going to be almost bespoke construction. And it's very hard to build large tracts of affordable housing, whether those be apartments or relatively inexpensive homes. And by relatively inexpensive, I mean $250,000 for the home.
So we haven't experienced the tremendous growth that the rest of the state has. And it's even more coupled with two things. One is Kerrville itself, I would not say it's progressive. It's less right. But Kerr County is extraordinarily right. And that may be because the demographics of our county is, let me get this right. Thirty-eight percent or sixty-five are older and they don't want change.
Right.
Uh, they don't want any new businesses. They don't want any new people. They don't want any new stuff. Oh, uh, it's an interesting dynamic to see the county push back on growth and the city say, "We need some growth so we can sustain our, I think, twenty-two thousand population base."
Yeah, uh, it's, you know, it's interesting. You get the opportunity to build, uh, communities selectively. It's, it's not a, it's, you know, neither here nor there in my opinion of like what's right or wrong, but it is a beautiful place. And I will say it's one of my favorite Starbucks there is. Y'all got a Starbucks right on the river.
Right on the river.
Outside there and being, I did a podcast out there once, uh, I mean, I was just sitting right there by the river. That one of my interviews and it was a peaceful, beautiful environment to be in. So those of you tuning in, Tom Fox has the Compliance Podcast Network. He's an experienced podcaster, also experienced in, um, in all aspects of compliance. And, um, there's some legal topics we might dive into as well. The beautiful thing about podcasting is it's such a new industry. Um, there's a lot of opportunity for being able to, to dive into it and get into this game without worrying about all the red tape that exists with so many other types of businesses.
Like if you're going to create, um, biopharma company, or if you're going to create a law firm and office, you need, you need accolades for that. You need licenses for that. Um, in the world of podcasting, it's kind of in, it's kind of a wild, wild west right now. You can just get into the game, yet there are still all sorts of challenges. There's risks, there's threats, there's, there's weaknesses. There's opportunities and strengths, of course, that you can lean on. But we'll be, we'll be diving into that. Before we dive into that topic too much, you've been around the block, Tom. You've, you've done a few things, um, in over the last couple of decades at least. So I honor that. And I know there's a tremendous amount of wisdom that came from all the years of study.
What three resources would you recommend for other visionary leaders out there?
Well, number one is your colleagues. And your colleagues can be people you met, meet on podcasts, just like you and I are meeting. It doesn't mean we're homogeneous. It means that our diversity can make us all better. And your views on leadership may be different than mine, but guess what? Mine aren't the only views. And so I can learn in that method. Two is to have some mentors. I, I'm a lawyer by professional background, and the three most difficult people I worked for in my professional career, I learned the most from.
They were hard, demanding people who, I wouldn't say they demanded perfection, but they demanded my best. And I may have had some questionable adjectives for them when I was younger, but now I see that because they forced me to do things that I didn't want to, that I became a much better lawyer for that. And then the last thing is to be, and I am endlessly curious. I never can stop learning. I was a voracious reader as a child. I continued that. And now I consume information largely, you're interviewing other people.
And I spend four to six hours a day interviewing people for podcasts. And it's not that I can see around corners, but I'm talking to people who can, or I'm talking to people and I can connect the dots, because I'm talking to all of them. So endlessly curious or endless curiosity has served me as well as anything.
I love that. Did you say you do four to six hours of interviews per day?
Yes.
That's incredible. That is truly incredible. Those of you listening in, you can, starting your podcasts, you can do one per month. You know, you can do one per week. I did a stint where I was doing the four to six interviews per day. And it was an amazing experience. It was super eye opening. And I, I want to honor the fact that like that takes some tremendous strength and power and, and it takes a lot of,
a lot of exercising to get the mental fortitude to get to the point where you can do that. I also noticed in my own experience, I would have these amazing discussions and the, the discussion I had in the morning, I remembered it would be like the most powerful one. I'd end the day and I would know that I had a powerful experience, but I couldn't remember who it was. And I would go look up the name and I couldn't remember the name.
And then I would go watch the video and I would go, I don't even remember our conversation. Um, you know, and it wasn't because I wasn't attentive. It just takes a lot of bandwidth to be able to dive in at that level. So, it's, it is, that is amazing. Four to six per day. How many episodes are you up to?
I've probably done 5,000 podcasts.
5,000 podcasts. How many years?
Since 2012.
I don't know, probably 70 ongoing.
Man, I, I can't wait to dive in more on that. We're going to dive into that after the break. Um, I want to, I want to make sure to honor the three resources that you just laid out there for us. Um, again, those of you listening in, if, if you're not aware of the power of the elder, this can be somebody who's one year older than you. This can be somebody who's decades ahead. It's, it's just so much power and digging into what they say. We have a, a guide on mentors and how to find great mentors that I'll be attaching to the, the show notes. Um, I'm absolutely a huge fan of mentors. I loved what you added to that, Tom. Being willing and able to work with people who want, who, who demand their best, who want us to show up and do well, who are looking for excellence.
Hopefully we all are. And then there's the, the colleagues aspect. There's going to be different perspectives, but this curiosity one really hit me. Strengths finder 2.0. My number one strength personally is learner.
And as a learner, so was my first wife's. She was also a learner. Hers talked about school and curriculum. Mine did not. It said, you were the kid who always asked why. That curiosity factor is a big piece of why I do podcasts as well. If you find that you're a curious person, this is one of the podcasting, one of the coolest experiences to explore the minds and hearts of other people and get to learn from their experiences. So again, I love that. That's the third resource that you mentioned. Anything else you'd like to add before we go to the break?
Uh, no, let's go to break and then we'll come back.
That's perfect. Mr. Efficient as well. I love it. We'll see you guys on the other side. All right. Welcome into Vision Pros Live with Jackson Callum. I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome into another episode of Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host, Jackson Callum, founder and CEO of First Class Business, and I am super excited to have Tom Fox on stage today. We're going to be talking all things podcasts with you guys. We're going to do our best to dive deep into certain topics, which will limit the time, but we'll also try to explore as many things as possible to help you on your route to maybe becoming a podcast guest or becoming a podcast host yourself. Right now, there's such a great, such a great season of life and time to be launching a podcast and getting into it. If you've had that inkling, listen up. We'll talk about the goods, the bads, and the uglies as well. I tend to gravitate towards the uglies. Why? Because there's already a bunch of people
out there and on the internet trying to convince you to go on the podcasts. So I'd rather talk about the things that might get overlooked and hold you back as you try to to build something successful for yourself. So before I bring Tom back on board, another great podcast to highlight is Dave Morrow's podcast, Hard to Kill. You can go to hardtillkill.org and see what we're up to with Dave. Dave's helping 100,000 veterans lose 2 million pounds collectively. He's got an award-winning podcast in the veteran space, phenomenal leader. As well, in fact, he's opened his program up beyond helping just veterans. He's now got a civilian community as well. He's the first personal trainer, health professional to get me to stop being skinny fat in eight years.
I've met a lot of awesome professionals. I don't know how he does it, but Dave's able to inspire people to look good, feel good, and go and do good. I've spent an honor to work with him for the last six months. And again, I highly recommend checking out his podcast. And if you're a military person, you'll for sure benefit from, uh, from what he's doing, how he's helping people. And he always needs more warriors to help lift the others who also need such support. Well, one of the things that Dave stands for and stands, really stands against is the fact that the suicide rates are so high amongst veterans right now. And a big part of that, his theory, a lot of people's theories on this study show that when they get home from their military experience,
they fall out of line with the routines that exist and they have unhealthy routines related to exercise too. And you end up hurting your body more than helping it, which is why he's there to help people stay on track as much as possible. I could talk all day about Dave and what he's done, um, for the sake of honoring Tom, I'm going to keep moving though. The next one is, that's opportunities for work for Latinos. Um, it's our virtual assistant program where we help these, uh, we help Latinos, Filipinos and Indians become virtual assistants, digital ambassadors, as we call them. We do not believe in VA relationships. I call that virtual abuse. It is really sad how many entrepreneurs or solopreneurs hire somebody and never take interest in who they are or their personal development and growth.
We take personal development growth extremely seriously. We're looking for Latino leaders who would want to be on this podcast, uh, that's with my Spanish team, inspiring other Spanish speakers to take a little bit of hope and faith and action themselves to consider that, you know what? Maybe there are job opportunities out there. These are people who don't know about LinkedIn. They've never heard of it. They don't know about Canva, Upwork, Fiverr. They've never read Rich Dad Poor Dad. They've never read Think and Grow Rich. There's a whole. There's millions, possibly billions of people out there who could benefit from this type of a program and we hope that you consider joining us on this or launching something to help us bridge the economic gap to North America, South America, rest of the world.
And there's a water project. I'm feeling a little bit thirsty right now, but the real reason why I focus on this is because I've never truly been thirsty in my life. I don't have any affiliation with a water project. I just contribute to it and love what they stand for. I see these kids getting water from sources that are three to five miles from their house or from their school. They have to leave school to do this, or parents have to leave work. You can imagine the disruption that would cause with your own ability to try to provide for your family. And these kids celebrate water like my kids celebrate Christmas Day. We have the same opportunity to give back to them by providing $5 or $20 in contributions. What I love about what they do is they allow you to pick the community that you get involved with and you actually get to see that project come to fruition.
Whether they build what's called a borehole well or a sand dam, the transparency that the water project has created is something that to me is second to none. It's inspiring. I hope that you feel inspired to at least talk about this with friends and family. And if you know of a cause that you'd rather see us talk about and support, it's not a competition. There's eight billion people to help in this world and my hope is that you will let us know in the comments what causes you support. I'll do some research on that as well. We'll try to get it out there. It's one of the privileges, great privileges of rocking this microphone is if I'm going to be doing this for a living and I'm also going to do everything I can to help out people who don't have the same privilege. So join me on that if you will. And without further ado, let's improve your lives with
an interview with Tom Fox on how to get into this whole podcasting world and have a great experience. So Tom, welcome back to Vision Pros Live. Thanks for joining me.
Thanks, Jackson.
Absolutely. So I'm going to dive in quick and dirty on this. 2012, you got into the podcasting game. What started that? Where did you see a podcast? How did you hear about it? Let's hear that beginning story.
So in 2010, I started my private or consulting firm, basically my own law practice. And I was laid up due to an accident and I couldn't leave the house. Or the only time I could leave the house was to go to physical therapy. And I had no income, so I decided that whatever I did to market, it had to be at no cost to me. And at that point in my life, I didn't know what Twitter was. I didn't know what LinkedIn was. I had heard of Facebook and so I started exploring social media tweets. I tell people actually Twitter made me probably they wouldn't believe that if they saw today's Twitter.
But back then it really was a B to B network and tool. And so I started with Twitter. That led to blogging. I'd always written a lot as a lawyer, so I started blogging and podcasting was just a natural extension of the blogging. It was really the next step.
Wow, okay. So and on Twitter, you have 108,000 followers. So in fact, you have 108,001. So got that got that followed on there and I I really do like Twitter. It's one of those platforms that is underrated and often misunderstood. I guess we should call it X now, not Twitter. But it's a platform that is so different in terms of strategy and how to use it. Then all the other platforms that exist out there. We'll reserve that strategy for later. I know Alex from Ozy has some great content on how to maximize Twitter as well. So you got into the podcasting world. What was that like? How did the upload process work? What platform did you use back then?
Um, it was about as simple as straightforward as it could be. I'm a Mac guy, so GarageBand was preloaded on my podcast. I was on WordPress to blog. And so I simply got a Libsyn account, loaded it up, put the podcast into Libsyn, published it on the traditional podcast platforms. Put it on WordPress and I was rocking and rolling in about six hours.
It's awesome. And that's pretty similar to today. The podcasting world's not that hard. People complicate it, especially providers. We have a challenge in that there's a quote, you've probably heard it, Tom. When you start selling a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And so we got all these, these people out there that are promoting podcast publication to get your studios and make sure you do it right. And, you know, that end up making people second guess themselves. I guess I can pick on myself there, too. I like to talk about the uglies of it as well and talk about what's, what challenges exist. But when I launched my podcast, I just went
live on Facebook and I call it a podcast. My team goes, that's not a podcast, Jackson. I said, it's my podcast. And they said, well, you have to have this and this. I said, I don't, not on my podcast. Like, we have to have RSS feed. Now, look, look, look, if you want to build all that, awesome. But I'm going to go live again tomorrow. And I'm going to call it a podcast. So, Tom, would you, do you agree with the philosophy? Is that wild and dangerous? How should, if you were to start today, what would you do?
Exactly what I did before.
It works, doesn't it?
Here, let me, let me take your phrase ugly. Yeah, there's not, in my opinion, there's nothing, nothing ugly in podcasting. I'm often asked, what lessons did you learn? Or what mistakes did you learn, make? Like, with the exception of one mistake that every podcaster has made, I've never made a mistake. I've grown. Everything that I have done has led to where I am today. And it's been a learning opportunity. It's been a growth opportunity. Now, that one mistake is fortunately, when you do it, you'd never do it again. And that, of course, is don't hit the record button.
I've made that mistake and everybody's made that mistake. And once you make it, guess what? You one time, one time flew to Boston to interview Harvard professor at an hour and a half interview. It was fabulous. And I looked down and I went, uh oh, the red light's not on. I can't turn it off. So yeah, I always hit the record button. Other than that, it's just been growth. I mean, I cringe when I look at some of those early podcasts.
Yeah.
I cringe the way I look, I cringe the way I sounded, but it didn't matter. People were interested in what I had to say because the subs, they were interested in the subject matter.
I appreciate the challenge on the ugly reality, right? That it may not exist from your paradigm. I'm also going to highlight there's some naivety to that, though. And here's why I would say that. One, I would never get in a Lamborghini that doesn't have a brake. And I would never fly a plane that doesn't have landing gear. That's just me. There are some potential ugly outcomes with that. Billy McFarland is the latest celebrity story in relation to
doing things irresponsibly. The irony is his bounce back story is almost proving my concept wrong at this point. But this is the man who planned the fire festival and who went to prison because he wasn't able to fulfill on the things that he was promising. And that the bounce back irony right now, I'll own it, I'll recognize it. That's probably going to make him that much more successful now that he's actually planning on doing the fire festival again. And he's already sold out the event yet again somehow because people are crazy. But
That's the rare exception to the rule. Most of the stories of people who launch things irresponsibly end up in prison permanently, or end up dying or end up being killed. And I think there's a, there's a real reality associated with that with podcasting. If you're launching a podcast for the sake of making money, or you're launching a podcast with the end goal that it's going to make you rich and famous, again, kind of sake of making money side, you could very well end up hurting all of your existing relationships, hurting your own life, and putting yourself in real financial jeopardy. And it's, it's not fun as somebody who does, who's a consultant, to meet people who launched a book, for instance,
and are $300,000 in debt and the whole, and they've got a book where they've claimed they're an international best seller, and they've got two reviews on, on Amazon. And you're like, uh, everybody sees that. Um, and everybody knows that, and now they have nowhere to go. So the, the challenge of, you know, can we do this without a break? Sure. But what would you say about some of those stories where people have been killed or gone to prison for standing up for something or doing something without the responsible ethics of, of compliance in place? You're compliance guy. I'm curious.
So if you start something, and you do that to me for a fraudulent reason, and you hurt people, whether financially, emotionally, psychologically, physically, you should pay for those. But Tom Watson, the first president of IBM said, "I want to hire the guy who's failed." And they're going to come back faster and better if they failed.
Let me go back to the Lamborghini. You know, the reason there's a brake in a Lamborghini? It's so you can drive fast.
That's why you have compliance. So you can do business quickly and efficiently, yet stay on the right side of the law. So no, if there's no brake, you can't drive fast. And that's what compliance is.
Huge. I love that. It's super important. And I'm going to go back to what you said about fraudulent. I think the sad reality is most people don't have an intent to be fraudulent. I believe that. I don't think their goal is to hurt people. Um, you know, is, is to go into there are certainly the narcissists that are out there. But most people go into those situations, having been hooked, baited and switched by somebody else who gets them into it. And yeah, they got a little bit of a victim mentality, perhaps. Um, you know, they've got, um, a, a little bit of, of, um, naivety to what they're doing, but therein to me lies the challenge is how many times I've seen people
that were good adults, pretty responsible, understood things about life, but they end up, uh, selling the farm, you know, and, and, and giving everything away when they're trying to, when they're trying to launch something like a podcast. Um, but maybe it's not ugly after all, I don't know. I'm just trying to have, I'm having a hard time seeing how there's no ugly in relation to it because of the negative experience I've seen people go through.
Uh, the fraud Pentagon tells us that fraud occurs when there's pressure, rationalization and opportunity. So if you start out somewhere, and I saw a lot of lawyers all pray to this. They live beyond their means. They start doing something stupid like stealing clients' money. And then they rationalize, well, I, I earned it. I deserved it. And when you have those three things in common, uh, then people move from. Oh, I made a mistake to, oh, I'm now engaging in illegal conduct. And it's sure a slippery slope, but you know, hopefully the ethics, the ethical underpinnings that we all have will keep us from doing that. But we have to be ever vigilant.
Which is exactly why I wouldn't, I just cannot go towards that. There's no ugly because I don't have that hope for all people, right? I have the hope for, I want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I just know with what I've seen that not everybody's going to align with that. You said pressure, though, rationality, and what was the other one?
Pressure, rationalization, and opportunity. And so you mentioned the guy who founded the Fire Festival or Fry Festival. I remember when that documentary came out, I asked my then teenage daughter the following, do you think he intended, he started out intentionally to create fraud? Or it just got away from him? He had something and, and she said, I don't know, Dad. And I watch it and I don't know. And I don't know if he just literally got away from him. His vision was too big. He couldn't execute on his vision and then it, you know, all went where it went. And he paid his dues to society for that as we measure those in the prison sentence.
So he should be able to move forward. It's up to me or you, whether the trust that number two is going to go off. I personally would want to see a little evidence he could pull it off. But there may be people who are willing to take more risk because they see other benefits.
Absolutely. And so those of you, how does this relate to your podcasts that are out there? Um, I think the, you know, some of the big components of that is what is your goal? Why are you launching what you're launching? Who's the audience that you're serving? Do you feel a sense of pressure, right? That a need to? Promise certain things and if you do, can you make sure to level that with proper expectations? Elon Musk is the exact opposite of the scenario we're talking about. He sold a car from stage that wouldn't exist for two to three years. And 180,000 very smart people put a thousand dollars on that car, even though they knew they might not ever get the car. He became one of the greatest visionaries of all time through that experience.
So my hope is not to uninspire anybody. To say, oh, my gosh, I don't want to launch podcasts. This is scary. My friend's life is scary. There's all sorts of things and challenges out there in life. Podcasting is actually probably one of the easiest things that you can do to create opportunity for yourself out there, based on what I've seen. Tom, have you ever seen anything easier as far as driving, distribution and marketing and advertising and growth and being able to get traction for a brand? I'm curious because I don't think there's much easier.
So when I started my consulting practice, a woman gave me two pieces of advice that were absolutely spot on. She said, number one, it will take a minimum of six months, but really a year. So you need to commit to doing this for a year. Two is, and this is going to sound specific to lawyers, but it's not. She said, don't be like every lawyer I know who takes in every piece of work that comes in because you're a lawyer and you can do legal stuff. If I wanted to do anti-corruption compliance work, and that was the focus of my consulting practice, she said, if that's what you want to do, that's great, but that's the only work you should take.
And she was absolutely right. It took me six to nine months to get up and get going. And I built a worldwide consulting practice, literally from my house way back before we had work from home. Because like I said, I couldn't leave except to go to fiscal therapy. So commit to a timeframe and if, you know.
Don't do other stuff or extraneous stuff. And I did that in my podcast business as well, and it paid me back in spades.
Huge. I'm going to add some valuable variables to this equation and that conversation of the woman who has not gotten credit yet. Are you going to give credit? Who's, who's the woman?
Francine McKenna.
Francine who?
McKenna, M C K E N N A.
McKenna. Thank you, Francine. Phenomenal verified advice. Obviously, Tom represents a great case study for that. So I do agree that you can do it with the six months to one year, but I also want to point out the variables that Tom had in his favor. Tom had already practiced the law and art of the 10,000 hour rule. Right? He was already, he'd already gone to school. He had already become a lawyer. And so there was a whole background of experience that exists there. And a lot of the younger market, a lot of you think you can go and do things without any experience whatsoever. And you end up putting yourself in a big hole and a big pickle. Um, so developing your expertise and craft, I think, is an important addition for most of you.
And some of you unicorns will be the exception to the rule. Congratulations. Um, you know, welcome to, uh, I guess, an easy life. I don't know. Um, and then, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Say about the 10,000 hour rule.
For sure.
Because you're, you're absolutely spot on there, but here's why I was able to make it work. I took an area of a law I had never practiced in. Or I'd done very little practice. But the area was incredibly narrow. There was one law in about five cases. So I read the law, I read the cases. And in 2010, uh, there was no formal guidance from any regulator. So I could say, Tom says this. And it was as equally valuable, uh, equally valuable as if Jackson says this.
And so I got my 10,000 hours in, but I got it in because I was focused on an incredibly niche area that I really could master. So for your audience, the entrepreneur, I'm a firm believer that whether you say the riches are in the niches or go niche to go big. If you, if you focus on a narrow area, you can hit exactly what you said is a key metric, in my opinion, 10,000 hours and that you can become the expert in that area.
This is one of my absolute favorite conversations to debate because there are, there are brilliant paths on both sides of this. And if you want to champion that even further, Gary Keller wrote a wonderful book called The One Thing, right? Where he talks about focusing on that one thing. And it's like the championship level book for those who are, who are drinking the niche down Kool-Aid. And I say that with respect because there's the opposite side. There's the people who bring, who, who drink the opposite Kool-Aid, the, the go wide, right? There's the jack of all trades is master of the none. But the rest of the quote is, but oftentimes better than he who only does one. Um, right? So there's that, there's that side of it,
but let's look at it from another perspective. I like the niche down concept. I like the, the one thing. I understand the value of that. Yet, as everybody kept recommending to me to do that, I had in my mind, once, once upon a time, a PR professional, a journalist told LeBron James, why don't you just shut up and dribble LeBron? She was sick of him getting involved in politics. She was sick of him putting his, his, using his public, uh, space to do thing beyond dribble a ball. And it was probably one of the most racist and prejudiced and narrow perspectives that one could possibly provide. And here's a man who owns hundreds of companies and has
hundreds of endorsements. And then there's Richard Branson, who also owns several hundred companies. And so I look at those two and I came up with a new quote. I will eat, have my cake. I will eat it too. And I will have a conveyor belt of cakes. Um, thank you, Richard Branson. So the niche down concept and the process, it's absolutely one that all of you should consider. Um, you know, and, and I'm not saying that there's not a value to it, but it is only one avenue on life. And if you look at Google and you look at Amazon and you look at Pandora and you look at Spotify and Instagram and Snapchat and beyond. These are all multi-billion dollar companies that, and Disney do not niche down.
Um, they do understand the value of clarity and focus and precision. Um, but it's, it's again, there's two different options there for you. What I think is best for all of you as listeners, what my hope is, take what you hear from any leaders that you listen to out there and apply your own vision and intuition to, to making the best choice for you, knowing that if Jackson said writing a book on a napkin is a stupid idea. From a strategy standpoint, it's probably kind of accurate, but then J K Rowling went and turned that into a billion dollar enterprise. Um, so if you're going to get advice from somebody, um, you know, if you're going to follow that, make sure to get in touch with the person who did it well.
So if you're a niche person, I got nobody better to recommend than Tom Fox. Um, he's doing a lot of amazing things, right? So I'll probably come back to you at some point, Tom, and also dive in the, hey, I'm ready to niche on this, um, and, and see what you have there. Um, in terms of those you serve, you've got a, you've got this compliance podcast network. Um, you've got your legal practice as well, potentially, maybe you retired from that, but who do you serve and, and how do you help them? And how does this network benefit? Because I, I do believe in it. And I do think there's a lot of value in, in all the things that you're doing.
So I have two metrics and two metrics only for a successful podcast. Number one, how much did I learn? Number two, how much fun did I have? That's it. And that has made me as successful as I have become. The reason is twofold. Number one, I am truly a subject matter expert in this field. I've written my humble opinion, single best one author volume on compliance, the call to compliance handbook. And so if I learn something, my audience is going to learn something. And guess what? I always learn something. But number two is equally important, the fun part.
Say people stay, they come for the guest and stay for the host. And I believe that wholeheartedly because when I'm having fun, people can tell it in my voice. And when I'm engaged, they can tell that. And I don't want to say we laugh and cut up because I'm a professional and I'm a stodgy old guy. But I can still be passionate about talking about compliance or anything else. And so if I'm having fun, my audience is having fun.
And that's it. I don't take polls to see what people want to hear about. I talk about what I want to talk about. And that makes, in my mind, for an engaging podcast. And it gives me the ability, at some point, you're probably going to say, how do you keep being this driven? It's because I absolutely love what I do. And I get to talk to people like you all day long. Sometimes it's on this side of the mic. Usually it's on your side of the mic. But this is what I absolutely love to do. So I'm up very, very, very, very early in the morning and I work very, very, very late at night. Part of it is driven, part of it is I'm an entrepreneur finally, and part of it is I absolutely love doing this.
So it all kind of comes together for me.
I love that. And I think that's one of the big keys is when you, when you love what you do. There's that saying that I actually am not a big fan of the saying, the one that says, when you love what you do, you won't work a single day in your life. And, and I get that you can do that, but I love what I do. So I work at it. Right. And I just learned to value the virtue of work for what it is. Um, but your, your path, you just taught me something super golden. Those of you who are experienced in the podcast world, um, most of us are failing to, to, we're, we're in our first attempt in learning, right? Use that fail word to propel yourself forward. Failure is not a negative. It's a positive opportunity to continue to grow.
Tom, you said, come, they come for the guest, the audience comes for the guest and they stay for the host. And I know that as I heard that, I was like, I can't wait to talk to my team about making sure that we're doing everything we can to honor the promotion of the guest who comes on our show. Um, you know, we, we do a good job of it. We work hard to do that, but there's just something about the way that you, you said that, that hit me at a new level and made me realize I want to spend, you know, the next couple of hours of my life, optimizing how do we honor these guests? Um, so thank you for, for being willing to share that. The driven and the entrepreneur stuff. I mean, it, it's funny. People come, you know, people don't understand
why we love to do what we do. Uh, right. And they have a hard time fathering that because they're, they're, they're existing life. But honestly, visionaries, most of my days feel like when I wake up and engage in my team, it feels like my birthday, almost every day that I get involved with my team. And even though they're virtual and I can't give them a hug on Monday, in fact, we're talking, I was like, guys, I've never said this. And y'all don't know this because you've never been with me. But if we had a real like physical office, when I walked in, I would give everybody a massive hug, uh, like, like every single day when we kick off, because that's just kind of like my personality and who I am.
It is awesome to have team members that support that. It's awesome to have guests who bring that type of vibe to you. It makes it very easy to want to get up in the mornings and to have the drive to go and do good. So your, your network, I'd love to hear more about it. What, what is the compliance podcast network and how do we get involved?
Sure. So the Compliance Podcast Network is legal and regulatory compliance. When I had the idea to start it, there was no network in compliance, and there's still no network in compliance. And so I was the first mover. What happened was it blew up during the pandemic because prior to the pandemic, almost all marketing in compliance was done in person. Trade shows, conferences, breakfast roundtables, that sort of stuff. And that all went away. And in 2020, people needed an outlet and they had money. So my little network blew up and I've been riding that wave since then. But it's really about what
I want to explore. So Star Wars in compliance, Star Trek in compliance, Shakespeare in compliance, Sherlock Holmes in compliance, Winnie the Pooh in compliance, James Joyce Ulysses in compliance, sports in compliance, women in compliance, compliance roundtables, daily compliance, weekly compliance, books about compliance. All of those things are a part of the network because they're things I love. And right now, I'm going through the entire A. Conan Doyle oeuvre of 56 short stories, got the novels, then I'm probably going to do the movies. And it's an excuse to reread everything. Every summer, I do Star Trek, the original series, Leadership Lessons from Star Trek, which I call Trekking Through
Compliance. And as my wife said, this is really just an excuse to re-watch every episode, isn't it? I'm like, yeah, really, it is. So, you know, and people love that. It's just storytelling. You know, what are the lessons from the MCU in compliance? I've done that. What are the lessons from Oscar-winning movies? I'm doing a presidential leadership series for the business executive. And it's just ways to shake and bake and slice and dice compliance that are interesting and interest people. And most importantly, they interest me.
Oh, I love that. That's Gary Vee. A long time ago, I heard him talk about how if somebody wants to have success within like 120 days, I remember what, what I think he said 100 days.
Go out, if you live in New York, go to First Street and interview three people. Um, like that are just walking by just here and then the next day, go to Second Street and do the same thing and go to third, just work your way up. Uh, it's like you'd have an incredibly successful show and podcast and opportunities coming at you from every which direction. If you just stick to it and be consistent with that. And so the, the underlying theme that Tom's talking about, I'm alluding to, and that Gary also hit straight on the head is if you just, if you just go for it, you, you know what you have in your life, what you, what you love. I love that. I love that you centered around fun as well. It's obviously a big value
and virtue for you. Um, and those of you listening in, maybe you're not into fun that much. Um, you know, it's like, well, who could I, I'm a fun guy, kind of, but I'm a healer. That's what I do. That's, that's what I gravitate towards is healing. I tend to be more reverent. And so there's people who've got like faith-based podcasts, some of them combine faith and fun. Some of them combine faith and like meditation. And so whatever makes you feel good, right? Whatever helps you maximize how much you value life, lean into that as a core piece of, of why you would get into podcasting and that will likely inspire you to head new
directions. I love how you broke down compliance and all those different categories related to things that you love. Um, it's a model that I just don't, I don't think we hear about enough. And so then we don't get, give ourselves permission to do that. Um, and you kind of, you, you, you create that inspiration for us, Tom. So again, I, I really appreciate the wisdom on it. We're going to dive into my favorite question of all time. Um, and that is if this was the very last chance you had to speak today, like at all, ever, what powerful lesson can other visionaries learn from your experience?
Just do it.
Whatever it is, whatever you want to do, just do it. If you want to study insects, because that's your passion, just do that. I was a lawyer for a long time, doing a lot of things I didn't enjoy. And I finally found a passion around being a lawyer in the world of anti-corruption and anti-bribery. And that's a worldwide scourge. $3 trillion is lost to the world's income annually from theft through bribery and corruption. I am a part of that fight. I'm not on the front lines. I'm not a lawyer, or excuse me, I'm not a legislator
passing a bill. I'm not a prosecutor prosecuting people who've engaged in illegal acts. But every day, everything I do pushes the ball forward just a little bit. And I get to revel in that. And one of the nicknames I have is the Compliance Evangelist, because I see compliance as the good news for corporations to fight bribery and corruption. And I do it through the podcast format. Like I said earlier on, we're only limited by our collective imaginations. If you can imagine it, you can do it. So just do it.
That's amazing. Well, you heard it from Tom Fox, founder of the Compliance Podcast Network. And Tom, do you have a guest application form for people who may want to be a guest on your shows? Or how do you go about managing your guests?
Sure. So just reach out to me on the Compliance Podcast Network. You can leave me a voicemail on an app called SpeakPipe, or you can send me, there's a form if you want to be a guest. Just fill it out, and that will get to my team as well. And we'd love to have you if you want to talk about compliance.
Who are you looking for as far as guests for your show?
Anybody. If you have an interest in compliance, I'm interested in talking to you.
That's really neat. And that's, and that's, that's like Albert Einstein stuff right there. Oh, right. Just being able and willing to explore what's there and see and getting, again, I'm going to go back to this mentorship thing that you talked about in this colleagues reality, right? It's once you, once you dive in with somebody, there's just no telling the direction of how deep it's going to go or what you might learn from their perspective. So to be curious and hungry and ready to appreciate all people like that's, that's beautiful, man. Go ahead. You got a, you got a burning thought. I can see it.
I do. Um, this just happened. Um, in 2018, two women came up to me at a conference and said, we don't think there's enough diversity in your network. And I looked at them. I said, you're right. When are you starting your podcast? And they said, no, no, no, that's not what we meant. I said, that's what I mean. So they literally didn't know how to hit record button. I showed them how to do that. And they started a podcast and they called it Great Women in Compliance. And they started a LinkedIn group called Great Women in Compliance. Well, that LinkedIn group led to an entire community. And at that point in time, there were no support groups for women in compliance. They built a support group from that. They
wrote a book about their experiences. Post pandemic, a compliance conference gave them a session about women in compliance. It was so successful, the next year, they gave them a three hour workshop on women in compliance. The next year, they gave them a two day conference called Women in Compliance. And they, I just, I gave out my first awards this year. I call it the Agora Awards for Excellence in Podcasting. And I gave it to these two women, Lisa Fine and Mary Shirley. And I tell people, they changed the world. They created a support group for women professionals in compliance when there was none and there still is none.
That's the power of podcasting and that's the power of one idea. And I don't know how many drinks they had before they worked up the courage to come up to say that to me. But they did. And I just said, you're right. Let's go.
I love that. Get it done. I love that. Oh, that is, that is so awesome. And all of you are one just do it away from, from doing just that, going out and having fun. This was, this is such a blast. Uh, Tom, like I, I learned so much in this, uh, in this particular episode. I'm excited to stay in touch. The, the, the virtue that comes to mind, it's not one that I've met very many people, um, that I would, I would say, hey, you kind of represent this for me and I'm, I'm watching you for the sake of developing this myself. I would say quiet dignity. That is, that is one of those virtues that, um, man, you just, you just gush it, um, of the way you show up as
a leader and, and I really, really, really appreciate that. Those of you listening, and if you want to get more involved with Tom Fox, of course, you can Google him. Of course, you know, we'll have the links below, uh, the episode and there's the action steps. My challenge to you is to be like the women that came and approached Tom. They were just willing to bring up whatever topic and, and never hesitate to reach out to great leaders. Great leaders love to lead. Um, that's, that's, that's what they do. That's what we do. And we'll also have the resources down below, including an AI-generated guide on how to find a great mentor. Um, I'll likely be creating one today regarding curiosity and how to dive into your own curiosity. Uh, thanks to, uh, to
Tom inspiring that. And then lastly, in the top right corner of the screen, you're going to see a big old button that says be our guest. If you want to come on our show, be our guest, share your vision. Don't hesitate to do so. And we'll see you guys all on the next episode of Vision Pros Life. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision
Page updated November 13, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
