The Passion That Drives Us

[Music] thank you hi everyone welcome back to liftoff with Jeannie Weldon I’m your host Jamie Weldon I created liftoff so that people like you and me could get the information we need to make the most of our personal and professional lives I call it work life blend so let’s have some fun and I’m going to bet you learn at least three new things you didn’t know before you tuned in today so who’s in you better be in because we are so excited to welcome our next guest on liftoff I cannot believe the words coming out of my mouth the one the only Jay Leno Jay recently appeared at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood New Jersey Jay participated in the festivities by attending the private reception at Benzel Bush Mercedes-Benz dealership and drove the AMG eqs sedan to cut the ribbon at Bergen pack before his 8pm performance sadly I wasn’t able to make the event but Jay was kind enough to meet with us for the show I am beyond thrilled to welcome Jay Leno to liftoff thank you thanks for taking the time for all those entrepreneurs out there listening what advice do you have for them well I think you need to be open-minded we become so less tolerant of there are plenty of people I disagree with politically that I really like is people We Just Disagree politically you know when I started this game show You Bet Your Life I sold it on the premise of there’ll be comedy but no politics no politics at all and people seem to like that I’ve done that in live shows too when people come to my live show it’s just comedy you know Rodney Dangerfield and I were good friends I knew Rodney 40 years I have no idea who we voted for I don’t know if he’s a Democrat or Republican I don’t care because we just talked about stupid jokes all the time and we laughed all the time and and that’s what’s the fun part and a lot of times I’ll see you know somebody walk out on the game trying like oh boy I know I’m not going to agree with that guy politically but I’m not going there and I find out well he’s a good father and he’s a good provider and he’s he’s a nice guy we just disagree on this issue that’s okay it’s okay to disagree with people you know and like many of us who watch liftoff you’re an entrepreneur too as an entrepreneur how important is work-life balance or what I call work life blend and having a hobby yeah I mean I think there’s an old saying the heart is healthiest when the hand and the head work together so during the day I’d work with my hands and then at night I’d work with my head and and one sort of balances out the other so yeah I think there’s something to that because if you just concentrate on the same thing all day it gets a bit overwhelming I I think you know when you can take a break and go to the next thing then it’s it’s it’s like being married you work all day oh then you go home to your wife at night oh and it’s it’s a you and your wife aren’t together 24 hours a day so you appreciate the time that you’re apart and you appreciate the time when you’re together so yeah I think there’s something for that I know you love cars what is your favorite car you know I I buy the story as much as I buy the car I mean I have a 55 Buick I have that I’ve had it’s the first car boat when it came to California in fact I got off the plane and I went to the newsstand and I bought the Pennysaver which was one of those you know for sale things and I needed a car and I saw a 55 Buick 350 I said to somebody where’s uh Winchester and they said what’s about six miles from the airport oh so I got in a cab I went to Winchester thinking I’ll buy that car then I got there and it was okay and I said well I can’t afford to dry I might as well buy this guy so I bought that car it was a big car and I could sleep in the back seat so that’s what I did so I lived in that for about a week or two when I just when I got to California I didn’t really have a plan I guess you could say Yeah Yeah final question what are your thoughts on electric cars I’m a huge fan I mean you know Mark Twain used to say I I like progress It’s change I don’t like you know and there’s something to that I mean people think it’s still Transportation it’s still a car it’s just a method of propulsion it’s different um no I’m a huge fan you know steam ran everything from 1800s to 1911. from 1911 to now it was all internal combustion engines now you’ve moved into electrics and uh you’ll have the other type of cards they’ll still be gasoline cards for them easily the next 50 or 60 years you know synthetic fuels will come along something will come along but at some point you don’t want the whole planet to choke to death and you’ve got to figure out a way around it you know so uh no I’m I’m I’m I like technology I’m a big fan this was an honor don’t go away though because there is more to come after the break [Music] NFL sports agent Sean stellato has never backed down from a challenge once told Skinny kids don’t make it in sports full of giants he defied the naysayers to become the Star Quarterback at Salem High School during a tumultuous time in the town’s history Sean joins us now to tell us more about triumphs trials and how his career experience on and off the field can help anyone wanting to make a change welcome Sean great to be here Sean you have such a fascinating story and I think so many of our viewers will be able to relate to everything that you’re going to talk about today so tell us about you know what you faced as challenges early on in your journey and your award-winning book no backing down yeah it’s one thing about football it’s taught me resiliency at a young age I was small I had two older brothers that I looked up to Mom and Dad eight of us in a three-bedroom house so right out of the get-go I knew my dad stressed hard work and uh be honorable and I kind of took that and use that as part of my canvas to uh you know grind work hard and uh the whole football thing was great it kind of was a Euphoria football was like a compass it took me places that I probably would have never went to and uh That season we faced so much adversity from uh personal tragedies uh to the coach defying a lot pretty much in a nutshell he had an option opportunity to stay with the kids and Coach him and he decided to do that uh it was a vendetta with the superintendent against him compared him to Jim Jones and David koresh which was completely false so there I intertwined the parallels of the Witchcraft Trials of 1692 and uh it’s just small town politics political storm and I would say divine intervention heard of the show liftoff is about work life blend and it’s about making the most of your personal and professional life what are your secrets for that yeah you know every day I start my day on vertical not horizontally and I find that time whether it’s through prayer meditation to get right and then it’s it’s a little bit of self time um I am a workout Guru I eat sleep and drink it I haven’t changed since I was you know when I started playing soccer at five years old uh that’s part of my lifestyle whether it’s in the dojo whether it’s biking whether it’s running uh hitting the weights um and then it’s about production from when I get off that and um I’m producing I’m Fielding calls I’m selling my clients you know doing interviews uh and making sure I’m blessed my wife is an amazing cook um I I’m probably 5 a.m to 10 o’clock every night that’s how I but then at night it’s balanced with the kids uh I I don’t never miss a bedtime story unless I’m on the road and I enjoy my family time it’s very important but it’s all a strategic plan every day time management let’s face it we have a 86 400 seconds every day I’m trying to get every ounce and I tell my kids you know when that toothpaste is done you cut it and use what’s inside of it just don’t and that’s how I approach my day that’s why I’m trying to to be that strong male figure in their lives I’m a girl dad and um they have taught me so many different things and uh you know my wife’s my soul mate I’m blessed to have someone that’s been so committed and her and I got a connection that enables me and they bring out the best of me and uh I’m blessed for that so I’ve uh my one of my mentors Tom Dreesen opened up for Frank Sinatra for 14 years he taught me something early he said you know attitude is gratitude and that’s something I live by every day so I’m very fortunate but I feel like an artificial intelligence company you know what I’m doing we have so much growth and so much you know passion and what we’re doing and it’s an exciting time to be in this space that’s really interesting if you if you could give one piece of advice to people that are watching this wishing they could be more like you loving everything about their personal and their professional life what would one piece of advice be to get started you know what you got one life you gotta find your bliss if you don’t wake up every morning it’s ready to go without caffeine without any if it’s not organic you know do something else don’t conform everybody ninety percent of the world conforms find that Bliss and Niche and just never back down go for it and uh at the end of the day we’re trying to alter history in a nutshell and that’s the mindset so uh can’t do it alone got a great team and resource if I would just say find your bliss and when uh adversity knocks you know just banging out and move forward surround yourself with good people because we all know law of attraction is real and if you you know like Walt Disney said if you can dream it you can achieve it and I really believe that so looking forward to the big screen hopefully in time with this and uh yeah we got a lot of exciting things in the pipeline as well Sean thank you so much for being on liftoff today thank you Genie it’s been a blast you heard it here first no let up focus on your dreams and Never Back Down spend time with us learning how to not back down and get even more inspired from The Amazing Marie Osmond who by the way still looks so incredible just like she did in the 1980s stay tuned because you’re not going to want to miss this [Music] welcome back Marie Osmond has spent more than six decades in the entertainment business as a singer talk show host dancer actor author entrepreneur and a public speaker as a philanthropist she co-founded Children’s Miracle Network hospitals and was recently awarded the Secretary of Defense medal for outstanding Public Service wow Marie what has driven your 40-year passion for Children’s Miracle Network hospitals well we just kicked it off last week in Orlando um really the need was there I remember being at I believe it was People’s Choice Awards like 40 something years ago and they asked if I would do a charity and John Schneider was with me my co-founder of the organization and they said well John you can do but Marie you can’t and I said why and they said because you just did this charity and it just rubbed me wrong and um come to find out all these causes all these different causes that are out there they have to be treated and it’s in children’s hospitals and so we’re different in the sense from any other charity that 100 of the money that’s raised stays local in your area goes to your children’s hospital goes to your kids 100 of it and we have unrestricted funding which means your local hospital may need research uh you may have people that need help with pain with their their the cost or you know you may need um a neonatal bed or or equipment for Life Flight or whatever it is uh that’s where the money goes to help your community uh and your hospital serve you the best way possible so when you write that check or whatever it is give a dollar just know that that whole all of it 100 percent goes to your local children’s hospital you know my dad was an executive at Children’s Hospital and growing up I was always able to see the impact that he and the work that everyone at the hospital did and had on children’s lives and their family and it was really just endearing and so sweet to just see the smiles on people’s faces tell us what impact has Children’s Miracle Network hospitals had on health care for children over its 40 years of existence you you change you you help the kids and change the future is what you do I mean I remember when the ECMO machine was invented I mean come on that’s saving lives like crazy we have Miracle kids that have come back this last week we had a kid um Josh sundquist he was nine years old when he had his leg amputated from cancer there’s so many more things they can do now but Josh spoke Josh is having uh they’re having their first child in in two weeks and his wife let him go there to uh talk to all the kids but Josh went on to be a paralympian motivational speaker author comedian he these kids like you said they’re it’s life-changing walk into an adult hospital it’s depressing you walk into a children’s hospital and you will never be more motivated in your life than to see what these children go through and Conquer they’re just amazing we help over 12 million children a year statistics prove that uh about 62 kids or more walk into a children’s hospital every minute that’s a little over a child a second and um and they I mean you start looking at that number times 40 years it’s a lot of kids we’ve helped and it’s a it’s a great feeling to know that I’m sure all our viewers want to know what the future holds for Children’s Miracle Network hospitals you know that’s a great question I know statistically that children’s hospitals are in Greater need than ever just from covid um they we have just been uh told that it’s a national state of emergency for children uh with anxiety and depression they’re both up like 30 percent or more my daughter took my grandson in for speech therapy and they said that it’s up 70 percent because the masks made it so little children never learned to speak just all these ramifications but these hospitals are there uh they’re for like I said they’ll the pediatricians the hospitals train them for your communities and schools and research and prevention so they really the need is great so if you feel generous I believe people want to give I just believe they want to know that it’s actually going to the cause and when when I tell you that 100 of it goes to your your Lo your children I’m telling you it doesn’t get better than that it’s not being sent across the state to another uh you know another hospital or whatever it’s staying in your local area so it’s it’s just so fun to do things go go to cmn.org your local area and you can find out all kinds of things you can do to help what a powerful way to help save the lives of so many thank you Marie thank you so much fun talking to you if you got chills chill get ready because after the break our next story is going to bring you to tears [Music] welcome back over a year ago a good friend of mine who I thought was calling me from Miami told me he was actually calling me from Ukraine when I heard what he and his team were doing there I knew I had to find a way to support it I’m so thrilled to introduce Brian Mayer today he’s an executive at a new york-based startup and a year ago barely a month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine Brian took a 10-day vacation and went to the Poland Ukraine border to coordinate Refugee assistance and resettlement and humanitarian Supply to Ukraine Brian thank you so much for joining us today for having me so Brian I know your story but for everybody that’s watching what compelled you to get involved in helping everyone in Ukraine well as you said I took a a vacation to help because I wanted to help but I didn’t really know what I was doing out there and what I found is so much of the effort on the ground in Ukraine is being organized by independent volunteers and uh when I say organized self-organized so there’s very few ngos operating there’s a lot more now but most of the ngos operating are operating in the interior of the country but not close to the front lines where civilians are in the most desperate need and so one of the things that we found is getting stuff into leviv into Kiev into the big cities was quite easy getting stuff to the the front to kharkiv at the time which was just recently liberated from Russian occupation or any of the other small villages that you probably have heard of in the news is zoom Limon these towns were very inaccessible to Aid workers that were trying to bring Aid in so as a result very little Aid was getting in and so we knew we had to do something to help coordinate the delivery of that well it’s must be so powerful but I know you also have a day job I do part of liftoff is about work life blend tell me how do you balance your career and this initiative at the same time well I love my job and I do continue to to keep my tech job in New York um but there are other hours in the day and I wanted to spend that time doing something meaningful for a cause that I really I’m passionate about and care about a lot and one of the things that I love most about your story is as you mentioned you’re not just helping people you’re not just getting food and supplies into a warehouse you’re getting them beyond the front lines to people and last time we were together you showed me pictures of Christmas presents being delivered people on your team dressed up the Santa Claus you know what is it like to reach how hard is it to reach these front line people and get them the aid and the food and supplies that they need absolutely so it’s very difficult and this is actually less this Christmas was the best Christmas in my life because I actually was there and I was able to dress like Santa Claus and hand out food and and Aid to the to the elderly and affirms and a lot of folks who are still living very close to hospital territory uh and their Village is in direct threat uh but they can’t leave for whatever reason I mean they’re elderly they’re affirmed a lot of children uh and so we were able to bring that Christmas miracle to the town of Limon which we were very happy about uh but uh the the the the general question of how we help and how we do it so we have an entire team of Volunteers in Ukraine run by my co-founder Liz lagov and they are on the front every single week we do at least two or three missions a week we’ve got Vehicles we coordinate the aid delivery from the big ngos who take it to the big warehouses and bring it all the way to the front lines and these Villages are very inaccessible we’re talking roads that have been blown out bridges that have been blown out and so you have to move things into smaller Vehicles there’s an entire Logistics operation it is quite difficult and it’s very dangerous and so the volunteers that are doing this work on the ground are just unbelievable Heroes how appreciative they must be and how many great relationships your team must be building out there yeah so more than anything else we’re just so happy to be able to help and we’re so grateful to our donors in the United States and elsewhere all over the world who have donated to support this effort and especially the logistics that it takes to get all this Aid out there well you know I’m definitely a fan and a supporter but tell the viewers how they can get involved and help if they want to as well absolutely so ukrainianternational.org we’re 501c3 all donations are tax deductible all of the donations go directly to support one of the over 100 communities that we’re supporting directly on the front lines and anyone can go in right now and make a donation and we really appreciate any amount helps I am so thrilled to know you Brian and to know your story and to just be able to share it today with everybody thank you so much appreciate it everybody stay tuned we’ll be right back [Music] this past weekend I went to my favorite fast food restaurant like always if you know me but this time it seemed a little more expensive than usual inflation we are all feeling it and at a time when more than 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck a lack of knowledge on financial resources and strategy continually prevents so many families and individuals from identifying ways to break free from financial hardship we mentioned PBS series Opportunity Knocks last month but Gene chatzky Finance expert and financial coach joins us today to tell us more about her show that highlights six families a different way forward for each of them pairing them with a renowned Financial expert to help them take control of their finances Gene it is so great to chat with you in person after all these years of sharing insights online welcome to liftoff oh thank you so much for having me what is your advice on how you break that cycle of financial stress because for some of us it’s just really hard to get out of once you’re in it yeah well the first thing you have to do is to expect it uh the folks at Fidelity did a piece of research where they found that as individuals we experience four stressful life events every single year and most of them have a money component and they’re not all bad right if you think about some things like having a baby or getting a new job those are very very stressful but they’re also very positive and so breaking the cycle requires coming up with a game plan to fight the particular kind of stress that you’re under when we look at at stress and I mentioned fight or flight before those are usually our two reactions but often in modern society we run away from these things we go take a bubble bath we take a yoga class we try to get a massage we we do what we can to sort of Escape stresses doesn’t work with finances you have to fight back and that means figuring out what is the problem that I’m facing and what steps do I need to take in order to deal with this situation and then how do I sort of Benchmark my way through them and you know I’m a big fan of hermoney.com and you have such great advice there what are the top three pieces of advice that you would give people that they can do right now to get started moving forward on the right Financial yeah and you mentioned at the very top how we’re all dealing with prices that are um inflated right we’re spending more than uh than we expected to be spending this year so that’s where I’m going to start track your spending if you can get yourself even for a month to look at what’s coming in what’s going out and where it’s going then you have the power to make changes about where you want that money to go once you know where the money is going then you want to either take the money that you are no longer spending because you now have the power to make changes and use it to pay down any High interest rate debt if you’ve got it interest rates are continuing to go up which means that debt is getting more expensive and having debt we know is the most stressful financial situation particularly High interest rate credit card debt so once you free up some cash use it to fund that Debt Pay down and finally if you don’t have debt or even if you do use some of that money to rebuild your emergency savings if you’ve used it up or just to build it if you have never had it in the first place once you’ve got emergency savings you somehow feel more able to sleep at night and better going through every single day that is so true and I can say that from experience so outside of your incredible advice what are the top apps or websites that our viewers can go to to help educate themselves on the resources out there well I I will mention one of our tools which is called Finance fix it’s an eight-week budgeting program that helps you dig into your data and and people who have gone through this program are finding that they’re saving thousands of dollars so Finance fix we spell it with two x’s.com and one of the family is on opportunity knocks one through the program with great results as well apps and budgeting tools mint is is a really good one the folks at my my Facebook group are pretty obsessed with one called you need a budget or YNAB um it’s not free but it is a really really good tool bringing the community to be able to help you is really just an insightful idea we’re so excited to watch Jane thanks so much for being on the show and for Lending your expertise and helping to change everyone’s life for the better thank you so much for having me all right everybody stick around we’ll be right back to chat with the founder of one of the hottest professional organizations out there [Music] did you learn at least three new things on this episode I learned like a hundred but we’ve got one more for you before we sign off I want to introduce you to one of my favorite top professionals Stephanie cerami Stephanie is the president of the International Association of top professionals editor and founder of tip magazine and tip radio she’s the award-winning best-selling author of top 50 Fearless leaders welcome to liftoff Stephanie oh my God Jeannie I’m so excited to be here I’m so thrilled that you could be here today because I wanted to wrap up the show with some sort of final piece of inspiration and I’m such a big believer in your organization and what you do and the community that you’ve built so tell our viewers a little bit more about the iaotp sure so the iaotp where a prestigious Global organization we hand-picked the world’s most brilliant professionals all different industries from scientists to doctors musicians astronauts You Name It We have them as part of our Collective family I like to call them our superhero Arsenal that we keep and we get our rock star celebrities over you know their rock stars in their Industries already but we help Elevate their brand we come up with Creative Marketing ideas we get them seen on billboards in Times Square we get them featured in tip magazine which um the editor of and please guess who’s gracing the front so we also have tip Radio podcast that’s hosted by Miss Universe Michelle McLean and then we have an annual Awards Gala every year that recognizes our brilliant professionals and they get to come on stage and be recognized for the amazing work that they do and I am so honored to present to you today our empowered Woman of the Year award Genie Walden thank you so much we’re so honored to have you a part of our iaotp family it’s my pleasure thank you Genie thank you so much right we hope you learned something that will help you improve your personal and professional life I’m gonna go and cry right now because I’m so excited about this but we’re not going to stop the show we’ve got more amazing experts and tips to bring to you in our next episodes be sure to follow us at liftoff with Jeannie for tons more and we’ll see you soon I might never put this down the proceeding was sponsored by liftoff Enterprises LLC