This transcript is auto-generated and may contain spelling and grammatical errors.
Tyler Jorgenson (00:01.303)
Welcome out to Biz Ninja Entrepreneur Radio. I’m your host, Tyler Jorgensen. And today I have somebody coming in who has been introduced to me as corporate America’s Mr. Rogers. And as a big Mr. Rogers fan and de facto member of the Church of Rogers, that excites me. And I’m really excited to get to know Tim Chisano and welcome out to the show.
Timm (00:26.338)
Thanks for having me on, man. This is a treat. I’m excited for the chat.
Tyler Jorgenson (00:29.403)
Yeah, well we’re gonna get more into your nickname, but I wanna know when in your life, when was that moment where you first realized that you were an entrepreneur?
Timm (00:40.494)
Still figuring it out. don’t even know that I would consider myself one right now, even though technically I am. For the first time in my adult life, I’m working for myself. We are now 22 months into that journey. 25 years before that, I was in corporate America. I feel like I probably always had some entrepreneurial ideas, thoughts, suggestions in my head, but
Tyler Jorgenson (00:56.465)
Okay?
Timm (01:10.22)
was never brave enough and thought that the word was beyond what my skill set might have been able to bring to the table. And it just came down to a very bizarre set of circumstances that put me on the path to being that technically is somebody running their own business in a one-man band with multiple business verticals, you know, trying to do all the things, figuring out new business models, inventing new products. and it’s been a blast, but
To answer your question, I’d say I’m still figuring that part out.
Tyler Jorgenson (01:44.017)
Now that makes a ton of sense and I think as I’ve asked that question, 90 % of the time it’s people that like, I was just since I was a kid. Like I knew it from day one. And the other side is maybe came more from your path where they did the corporate ladder, they built that way. However, a lot of your experience was in producing live events, marketing, which to me are very entrepreneurial creator driven roles. So did you feel that…
Timm (02:05.762)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (02:14.309)
you were drawn to roles that allowed you to be entrepreneurial maybe within organizations.
Timm (02:22.913)
I, it’s almost like I’m getting way too much credit than I deserve in that regard. If I even tried to say yes to that, uh, dude, I didn’t, I just, wanted jobs that I could sink my teeth into and ones where I could grow in places where there was opportunity to leave a mark on things. I don’t know that I was ever smart enough to look at it in that way to think,
Tyler Jorgenson (02:26.053)
Ha ha!
Timm (02:47.502)
Well, this allows me to do X, Y, and Z from a skillset perspective. And therefore this kind of scratches the itch, even though it’s technically in a corporate environment. It was leaving school without a degree, fumbling my way through four part-time jobs to be in a position where I can get a full-time job before somebody figured out that I didn’t have a college degree. Sticking in that for as long as they would have me transitioning careers. Once I got married and realized that all of the live sport events
would mean 36 weeks of travel a year and that’s not conducive for the kind of marriage that I wanted to have and then fell backwards into a bit of a larger role from there and then fully even further backwards into social media stuff. So, um, honestly, I still feel like, and I’m sure this is probably the only comment that thread throughout is that I just still feel very attached to the 17, 24 year old dumb ass inside me.
who wanted to figure things out, wanted to do things that were as creative as possible, but could leave an impact for the right reasons. And it just happened to be that for the most part that meant, or for the entire part up until 22 months ago, that meant that there was a check in the mail every other week and it came from a very big company.
Tyler Jorgenson (04:06.597)
Yeah, that’s a big shift, right? So it’s scary enough to work, to start your own thing, to go out on your own. It’s another level of fear when you’ve got to leave behind a decent size comp package, right? you’re internet famous, right? You’ve got over a million followers on TikTok, you know, over half a million on Instagram. You’ve got reach across other platforms, which is always great to see that you’re figuring out the flywheel.
Timm (04:19.319)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (04:35.985)
What was that first big win on social and was it a big enough early win that you thought maybe this is possible?
Timm (04:48.886)
It depends on how you define early win. I would define early win as the handful of comments I got that said you make growing up less scary, which all of a sudden gave me a window into the relevance of what I was doing. Not just necessarily like, cool, somebody’s doing some interesting stuff on a social media platform and it’s getting views and clicks, et cetera. That there was some sort of impact that I was unintentionally leaving.
And with trust comes value. Right. And so I think that that first inkling into people want to hear what I have to say simply because I’ve been there and done things. And if I pay that forward the right way, can potentially mean really good things for all of us. You know, and that was the less than
scientific business model that led to where we are today. So like the first one was commons that told me what I didn’t know, which was this is relevant and this is helpful. would say the next big win was when brands started to lean in and they’re like, Hey, do you want to, do you want to do some stuff? And then because of the background that I had at ESPN, it was very easy, right? Cool. Yeah, of course. I Dyson vacuums. got
Tyler Jorgenson (06:05.649)
you
Tyler Jorgenson (06:09.766)
Mm.
Timm (06:14.286)
all kinds of weird ideas. Like, let’s pretend that the robot vacuum is somebody who’s applying to be a new housemate in my home. And just thinking about things very differently as somebody with the unfair advantage of having been a marketing executive in a traditional space for a very long time, I could think about things both from the creator lens, but also from, well, what is the C-level person on their side going to think about this?
They’re going to look at what’s the ROI, why are we doing this, what did it cost, how long did it take, all that kind of good stuff. So I could see it from both sides. So the corroboration of the value in the content in general, you know, the first couple of brands that were like, Hey, do you want to do something? And I realized very quickly like, wait a minute, like this is a totally different world when I’m not doing it for a company, when I’m doing it independently, I can, I can kind of let
Tyler Jorgenson (07:04.305)
Hmm.
Timm (07:09.92)
my biggest ideas fly and I know I can hit the mark exactly where a brain needs it, but also do it in an unexpected way that they didn’t, could have never put in a brief, right? The ideas that just, they’re like, wow, this is why we come to you. And the last thing I’ll say is, cause I think that this was one of the most important things that I did and something that I tell other people and they’re like, well, how did you know it’s time to leave? And how would you be comfortable making that jump and leaving the biweekly check, et cetera? I made myself a value pyramid.
Tyler Jorgenson (07:34.213)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (07:39.158)
So I did this brain dump of what are all of the things that I do that I could sell. And that was from the highest level of things like I could work with a company to be an executive recruiter based off of my own experience to come in. I’m also a double certified emotional intelligence coach. So was like, okay, I can help people with executive recruiting. I can go in and I could emotional intelligence coach.
Tyler Jorgenson (07:42.449)
you
Timm (08:08.13)
departments, teams or companies. I can do that one to one. There’s the content, there’s the brand ideas, there’s the et cetera, just to the full brain dump. And then I listed them from the thing that would be probably have the smallest pool of people that would buy it, but would be the most expensive. So like the executive recruiting stuff probably to what is the thing that has the biggest reach that I should be doing for free. And when I looked at that value pyramid, then I was like, okay, cool.
This is not just one thing. This isn’t like, Hey, leap of faith. Let’s see if I can make TikTok ads until my mid fifties and see what happens. It’s like, no, I know that I can build at least two, three, four, five, seven different potential verticals for myself. And if three of them fall over, then I still got the other four. And so it a, it was a combination of those things, but I think if it didn’t happen in that sequence, it never would have happened overall.
because I don’t know that I’ve ever had the faith if those first handful of followers didn’t say you make growing up less scary, that I would have been in a position to be like, this there’s something behind this that matters more than I may have ever thought that this could matter. And therefore the value and the trust that I can build would give me a foundation that I can then build other things on top of if I’m smart about. But if that first part doesn’t happen, I don’t think the rest of it does.
Tyler Jorgenson (09:32.165)
Yeah, I love the perspective on that and the strategic nature, right? It wasn’t a, well, we’re just gonna jump and figure it out. It was like, no, I have multiple pillars. If one falls apart, I’m good. A lot of your work is around helping people be kinder to themselves. so your certifications in emotional intelligence, your ebook around doing your best work and finding happiness, I think this stuff is really important.
We live in a time where I feel like people are becoming more and more disconnected, not only from each other, but from themselves. They’re numb, they’re doom scrolling, right? And so it’s such this battle of, well, I’m gonna be another voice, but why is this voice meaningful, right? How am gonna help people? And so where do you find your inspiration and how do you manage that balance?
Timm (10:09.347)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (10:19.777)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (10:27.406)
Oh, that’s a great question. I mean, the inspiration just comes from being alive every day, right? Just like super cheesy, straightforward, but cool. Like, let’s do it again. We get the opportunity to feel good enough to be able to get up and go for a run or go to the gym. you know, my kid’s doing well, all things considered for a 13 year old girl who’s got all kinds of schoolwork and social pressures around her. things are, you know.
thank God, you know, in a really solid place with my wife, relationship wise, over like all the things that you just couldn’t be, that I think in times can be taken for granted. So I think just number one, the motivation comes from like, I get to do this again one more time today. Let’s, let’s do it. Um, and, then from the opportunity I pull that, you know, back to the experience of all the things that I saw and all the times from like, why are we making this so hard on ourselves?
Right. Especially when you just think about corporate America at large, it’s 30 ish million people, you know, depending on how you rank what, you know, how you would describe what corporate America exactly means, but it’s about 30 million people. And there’s, it always just boggled my mind that we couldn’t literally make it more fun and easier for each other. Right. Everyone’s like, I’ve got the Sunday scaries. I’m like, cool. I had them too. I have the everyday scares for years.
But we do it to ourselves, right? It’s people like we’re people that are in the same company that are like, okay, maybe one’s on the marketing team and the other one’s on the finance team or the product team. And they’re doing it to each other, right? And so trying to rally the larger group to be as comfortable and confident in their own skin as humanly possible.
Tyler Jorgenson (11:55.312)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (12:09.157)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (12:21.528)
to make sure that they’re kind of themselves first and foremost, that it’s easier to deal with those other people around them, and then hopefully then influence those other people to then be calmer and more kind, et cetera. And then on top of that, if we can then get, especially the healthy skeptics out there, they’re like, what does this all mean? Why are we doing this? Like, what does corporate America even mean these days? Like, where are we going with all of it?
In my humble opinion, there’s 10,000 people out there that have the best chance of changing the world in the most substantial of ways over the next 20, 30 years. And they’re probably in their late 20s right now that will become the top 20 at the Fortune 500 companies. And we’ll probably have more control than most governments, right? Because they can in the blink of an eye be like, cool, here’s what our minimum wage is. Here’s what we’re doing from an environmental impact perspective. Here’s what we’re doing relative to…
maternity leave and paternity leave and all those like kinds of things that just add up to quality of life. So, but it starts with yourself, right? You got to be more, you have to be more comfortable. You have to be kinder to yourself. You have to be able to give yourself a bit of a break and then be able to appreciate the differences in others. and so I, I really leaned into that because I’ve firmly believed the success that I had during my corporate stay.
Tyler Jorgenson (13:19.665)
you
Timm (13:45.142)
was largely built on my ability to what I say in that document, which is get people to do their best work by being the best version of themselves. That will, in my humble opinion, supersede any KPI or goal or bullshit thing that you can put on a poster on the wall if it doesn’t mean anything. But if you can get people to be the best version of themselves, not change, but just be the best version of themselves, then you can do some pretty cool things out there and be happier too.
Tyler Jorgenson (14:15.729)
Yeah, one of the challenges I always give to myself, is when I’m faced with a decision, it’s what would the best version of myself do in this situation, right? Because sometimes we’re tired or we’re other, you know, we have other factors. And so I’m like, okay, if I ignore all of those and I just, if I was at 100 today, what would I do? And I try to remember that. I think emotional intelligence is so important. Forever, we’ve talked about IQ.
Timm (14:25.154)
Hmm, I love that.
Tyler Jorgenson (14:44.129)
And, but EQ has become more and more frontline. And, you know, I have, I have four kids ranging 16 to 21. And so I have a perspective on this age where I actually think this generation is more self-aware than any of my generation or my parents’ generation. What trends are you seeing in emotional intelligence that are good or that you’re concerned with?
Timm (14:49.176)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (15:01.678)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (15:14.09)
I would say, I’m so happy to hear you say that I’m seeing an inkling of that. think at 13, it’s still too early to like really get a sense of the, especially for her peers. mean, my daughter, see all the time. So I’ve got a different gauge on her self-awareness, which thankfully, you know, is a, we’ll corroborate what you said where I think it’s, you know, it’s at a pretty high level, all things considered, but you know, the
I would say that the trend is we’re in a bit of a crossroads where, in my humble opinion, self-awareness is one of the biggest contributing factors to long-term success or potentially plummeting in your career. I think it’s why people will get to a space and then they just plateau. I think it’s why some people end up making catastrophic mistakes. But those that are self-aware, I think that they can navigate through all that and have the best long-term potential to be successful as humanly possible.
I do think that the younger generations are, are more self-aware overall because they have been, they seemingly have a different take on what success looks like versus some of the previous generations. And they feel like, at least from what I’ve seen, that they can kind of reinvent that, you’re supposed to check all of these life boxes and get to the space. And then you retire. Like, this is how it goes versus saying,
Well, no, like what’s the impact that I’m going to have and how happy am I going to be when I’m doing all these things and I do, really need all that stuff. And I think just even asking those questions will start them on a path and has started them on a path to being more aware of then what they bring to the table themselves and their potential impact. And for better or worse, it might be one of the positive outcomes of social media being as pervasive as it is, is that you either
You’re either if you’re making content you’re then like literally having to watch yourself on a consistent basis and if you have You know even a little bit of self-awareness going in your self-awareness could then explode probably potentially become too self-aware To a certain extent, but then you also at the very least I think they have a mirror Into other people’s lives in a way that they have never had it before I should say window into other people’s lives in a way that they’ve never had it before
Timm (17:39.81)
So I can be like, this is what it looks like when you’re that age and you have these circumstances, you know, at least for what people are portraying online. and I do think that there’s a relatively accurate portrayal of like all the glamorous things, but then also just, you know, mundane content, I think it’s had like a big boom over the past few years too. so if you’re 16 years old and you’re able to watch a bunch of content from a person that’s like, come with me on my nine to five and they’re just.
have a very normal life and their own very normal things, quote unquote, it kind of demystifies how adulting is just this completely different world. So I would agree. I’m also holding out at like a little bit of hope and taking a positive spin on where I hope it leads my daughter to and how her friends look at things.
But I guess it’s my job to help make sure she’s got the right kind of confidence to do all that in the right way.
Tyler Jorgenson (18:40.633)
Right? Yeah, that makes sense. You brought up something that triggered a thought of, you know, with all of the, the world is very different for our kids’ age than it was even 20 years ago. Affordability of housing is just massively different in comparison to housing increase compared to average incomes over last 40 years are just wildly different. And so because of that, there’s almost this shift that happens where
importance in those things has changed because it’s going to be out of reach for a lot of people. They won’t have that same opportunity to get real estate as the older generation. so, but all of a sudden it’s almost like there’s this freeing moment of if I don’t have to go for the picket fence, what can I go for that’s actually going to make me happy? Like where is the happiness instead of the achievement or instead of the optics? And so, you know,
Timm (19:15.918)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (19:28.685)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (19:38.211)
I don’t know, just an observation. I’m sure the economist can give us real answers in that, but what are some of the things from the perspective of what you’re teaching around doing your best work, right? What are some of the lessons that you really want your daughter and her generation to learn?
Timm (19:58.014)
Hmm. Oh man. it is an understanding a that you’re your best at say it’s two part. One is that your best is good enough, which is like old and cliche, but what makes that really sit differently is understanding what your best actually is. Right? So actually I’m gonna revise it. It’s three part. It’s understanding the best is good enough. If you can understand what your
best really is while making sure that happiness is part of the equation too, right? Cause there’s like your best relative to what you’re striving for. But then there’s also that question. I got this yesterday in union square when someone’s like, you know, I’m looking to do these things and I just had a kid and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, how do I do? I’m like, what do you want?
Like before I answer your question in regards to how to do what you’re doing, like is that even what you want or have you even defined that yet? Cause if you really want to do the thing off your side of the desk while you’re doing your day job, while you’re being a parent, like not to be that guy, but like it wouldn’t be the first person to do that. And I guarantee you that there have been thousands of people before you that may not have been as smart, may not have had the same circumstances, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And so for the, so for my daughter and her peers and you know, anybody even in that ballpark that I would have a chance to say this to it’s your best is always going to be good enough because it’s all you’re capable of. And that’s more than fine, but you also have to be comfortable with what that actually means. Right? Some people would be like, well, know, I’m trying my ass off and then
if they actually like did a calendar audit of where their time is getting spent. Is it really?
Tyler Jorgenson (21:55.857)
Yeah.
Timm (21:55.886)
But then also too, like what’s gonna make you happy? Right, and if you can take those pieces and put them together, then you have something magical. It’s like, cool. I know that my, to your earlier point, I love the way you said it, I like saying this too, like what is your 100? Like what is truly your 100 day? Output wise, attitude wise, all the things, what is your 100? Because if you can get to
85 % of your 100 85 % of the time, you’re going to do gangbusters things. But a lot of people will spend so much time contemplating what good could look like, that they never figure out what their 100 is. And then they’re kind of stuck in this like, well, you know, they think that they need to figure something out to then get to their 100 to then make the thing happen.
where I think you need to figure out, well, what am I actually capable of? Where do I actually want to go? Like what does it look like to me? And then if you can use happiness as a piece of that to make sure that you do it the way that is going to fill your cup.
then you’ve kind of solved almost all the world’s mysteries.
Tyler Jorgenson (23:14.223)
Yeah. You know, the challenge with the idea that your best is good enough is that then people slide the scale down and they’re say, then they’ll say, well, what I, I am good enough and I, what I did today is good enough, it’s like, but was it like, are you measuring it against what your best potential was? It doesn’t mean you have to reach outside and it does, but it’s, there is a, I think it’s dangerous when we start having any aspiration, right? When we start striving.
But there is compassion and there is empathy along the way, right? It’s like, I know what my hundred is, or at least I have an idea. I’m not gonna get there most days. And so my daily best is different than my absolute best. But I think what’s the dangerous road is when I allow myself to do 50 % and say that was okay. But I didn’t push, I didn’t strive. And I think this show 16 years ago was started with the
Timm (23:53.293)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (23:57.005)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (24:03.832)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Tyler Jorgenson (24:11.791)
really on the back of the idea of like what Tim Ferriss teaches about dream line, where you pick your, just define your dream life, what you want to do, what you want to be, what you want to have. And then you put that dream on a timeline. And, but I think so many times people of all ages skip the definition step and they just start saying, I’m going to start modeling what I see someone else do. I’m going to start seeing, doing what my buddy’s doing.
Timm (24:23.118)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (24:35.853)
Mm-hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (24:41.507)
Instead of saying, is it that I want? What do I want? What does my ideal life look like? And that’s like what you just said about that person you ran into. What’s yours? What’s something big that you want to accomplish here in the next 12 months?
Timm (24:41.773)
Mm-hmm.
Timm (25:02.574)
Two things. One is a book I’ve been writing for three years now and finally have a date that it’s going to be on shelves that I don’t think I’ve said out loud yet, other than to my wife and like people in my circle. November 10th, it’ll be on shelves and getting that out there and see, seeing the impact that it can have is, is one. The second piece is
this emotional intelligence school that I’ve been working on. So as I got these certifications, as I started to like use this in the real world and realized the impact that it could have, I thought, well, why is this only limited to people that can afford super expensive executive coaches? Like, how can I scale this out? How can I democratize access to this? So I have been working for about a year and half now
on scaling out access to emotional intelligence assessments that are usually just reserved for the C level folks that can afford those types of coaches and those types of opportunities. And my hope is by the middle of summer, I will have something standing up where people can easily purchase at a reasonable price, one of these assessments, and then be able to jump into a classroom with me directly. And I can tell them like, cool.
this is what your answer’s told me, right? And do that in large batches of people where it’s big enough so that the access can be scalable, but also small enough so it’s not just, here’s a bunch of video courses with all due respect to those. Like, no, it’s like, I’m gonna jump on and host these things. So emotional intelligence school, something I’ve been talking about for a while, but like that’s starting to become very real in the buildup process and…
Tyler Jorgenson (26:49.905)
Mm.
Timm (26:59.918)
a book November 10th called, How to Get Addicted to Appreciation.
Tyler Jorgenson (27:05.893)
Those are two big things. What about in your personal life? Any non-business things that you really want to do, be, or have, or achieve in the next 12 months?
Timm (27:16.68)
I am super excited to be in Korea and Japan with my family in June. And then we are going to, for the first time for us as a family, we’re going to drive coast to coast. My wife is from Beaverton, Oregon, and we decided this summer, since we have the time, we’re going to instead of just fly out there, like, let’s drive. you know, extends the trip by.
two or three days in the front and the back end, but like how fun, know, especially when she’s 13 and she’s, you know, she’s super well traveled at this point, but old enough where she’ll probably really soak it in, but not too old where, I don’t know, where maybe there’s like a bit of like, my God, this is really getting dragged into this kind of thing. So I would say.
Tyler Jorgenson (28:07.119)
Yeah, not to terrify you because you’ve got like, you’ve got like four summers, man. And so I love that you’re doing things to really, to bake in that deeper connection time. Cause that’s so powerful and so important. and that beyond anything else that I think going into your business for yourself and entrepreneurship can create beyond any other success being anything, having the freedom to have the time to spend with the people you want to spend it with is probably its greatest.
Timm (28:12.974)
Yeah.
Timm (28:16.856)
Hmm.
Tyler Jorgenson (28:36.559)
output in its greatest gift. And so I love that you’re taking advantage of that. If you’re famous everywhere, but if there was one place that you wanted people to go to get to know you a little bit more, where should they go?
Timm (28:48.14)
I would say Instagram. TikTok is a very different platform these days from when it was when I first started and where things blew up. Instagram is probably where you’re gonna get the best spread of who I am as a human being on a day-to-day basis. And then what are some of the things that I can do that could add value to your world?
Tyler Jorgenson (29:08.641)
So check Tim out, it’s T-I-double-M, Chizano on TikTok, or on Instagram. And Tim, thank you so much for sharing your presence and your information, your insight with us and the world. And to all my biz ninjas, wherever you’re tuning in from, watching or listening, it’s your turn to go out and do something.
