Torey Tolson

I think just having a heart for people. I realize that we are all one accident, one bad situation from needing the services of these nonprofits that I support with corporate money every day. Those that I work with and have formed partnerships with will all tell you that Tori is the most genuine, coolest person, because I go in authentically wanting to understand what is it that you do, what problem are you solving, who is this helping. I will randomly show up and volunteer for some of the organizations that we've given money to just to see what they're doing, not the day that they're putting on the dog and pony show because they know I'm coming and they want to be able to submit a grant application. No, I'll look on their website and see when they're having their next volunteer event and I'll just show up and provide a helping hand. The word gets around when you have a reputation of being a nice person, a cool person, an easy to get to know person, then that follows you. I think just my heart for people is what has been able to propel me to be able now to have people call and ask will I sit on their board, will I sit on their community event, or will I come and speak to their young group. I'm building things like that now, all based off of the reputation that I've built by doing this work.

Stay ready so you don't have to get ready. How I take that and apply that is I have taught myself like 2 or 3 different things using YouTube, anticipating that I might need it one day or I saw somebody else do it and thought it was cool. Like, I learned VLOOKUP tables using YouTube. I learned how to be like a master spreadsheet queen watching videos on YouTube. It's really come in handy that people come to me and ask me to teach them now because I got so good at it. And it was at a time where people weren't really using the technology to its full vantage point, you know, 20-plus years ago. So me having that skill, I've been able to kind of differentiate myself from some of the other folks that were coming up as well along the same time. I love that kind of phrase, you know, stay ready so you don't have to get ready, because you can always, there's always something to learn.

Learn their limitations so that they can practice them. I was just doing a speech for a leadership class two weeks ago and I was telling everybody, I get nervous all the time, but because I know about myself, I'm able to figure out how to get around it. So I will play games with myself in that if I'm going into a situation where I know I don't really know anybody in the room, maybe I know one person, one or two people, I will challenge myself that I'm gonna meet two new people. And so it may be I go and find the one person I know and I say, hey, Henry, introduce me to somebody I need to know in this room. And so I find, I make that an accomplishment. Like, I'm nervous because I don't know anybody, so I'm kind of scared to approach people, but I've challenged myself I'm gonna meet two new people. I tell folks, again, know your limitations, so if you're shy and don't like to talk, but I say, you know, don't get on that conference call and everybody else talks but you. So I will come in when I feel like that, I will come into the meeting with two canned questions that I can make apply to whatever the situation is, because I'm going to be heard on that call. I'm not going to be the only one that didn't have anything to say. I tell young people to recognize very early on what they feel their weaknesses or their limitations are, and then find ways to work on them. Nobody would know that they're working on them. If you're a person that gets so nervous talking and you sweat, then there's no way I would walk out of my house without an extra t-shirt on, because people don't need to know. People walk into these situations and act as if it's not gonna happen again, or act as if what makes them super nervous is not gonna happen. So I tell, I give all young people advice of, you know, get in tune with what your limitations and what your weaknesses are, so that you can quietly work on them.