Unpaid Intern to Director of Operations with Tiffany Swineheart

True commitment manifests in situations where the only choices left are to give up or to go on, and you still choose the latter despite the uncertainties. Being the second-in-command at Hal Elrod International, Tiffany Swineheart tells us her pivotal journey of stepping up for Hal at the time when he was battling with cancer. From being an intern to running Hal Elrod’s entire company in three years, Tiffany tells us how she managed to produce a movie and publish multiple books on her own with just a couple of employees and a few freelancers. A jack of all trades and master of none, she reveals what keeps her motivated at work and the savers she does to keep her morning routine aligned. On the side, learn more about the Miracle Morning Community and their upcoming live events.

Resources:

Connect with Cameron: Website | LinkedIn

Get Cameron’s latest book: The Second in Command – Unleash the Power of Your COO

Subscribe to our YouTube channel – Second in Command Podcast on YouTube

Get Cameron’s online course – Invest In Your Leaders

—

Transitioning From An Unpaid Intern To Director Of Operations with Tiffany Swineheart

Tiffany Swineheart is the Director of Operations and second in command for bestselling author Hal Elrod. She’s been working closely with Hal since 2015 and her job is to ensure that Hal’s mission to elevate the consciousness of humanity one morning at a time becomes a reality. Hal is actually my co-author of The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs. He’s got around a dozen Miracle Morning books in his series with the bestselling book, The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs leading the way and it’s actually been published in twenty countries around the world. In Tiffany’s last three years at Hal Elrod International, she transitioned from an unpaid intern to executive assistant and is now his second in command.

Her degree in Business Management from San Diego University is what she attributes a good deal of her success to, but I also uncovered in interviewing her that it’s also from reaching out to people who have gone before her in other roles, in other companies, and also a huge amount of reading and use of Google. In her role for around a year as second in command, her CEO Hal was in the hospital with leukemia. We’ve got some great insights. Welcome, Tiffany Swineheart. Tell us, how did you end up working with Hal? What was your path to even get there? Maybe give us your path along the way versus telling us how you started working with him.

It’s actually a fun story, one of my favorites to tell. I was waitressing my last semester of college. That’s how I paid for all of my schooling. I’m doing hand-in-hand school and serving tables. I was on my first week at this new job at this restaurant in our town where I met Hal called Temecula, California. Being new at the job but familiar with the service industry, it takes a type of personality to connect with guests. I had Hal in my section and he was dining with his wife. It was after his first live event, Best Year Ever, the first year he had ever run it in 2014. He mentioned that and mentioned what he was doing with his life and who he was and we connected. Within an hour he was like, “You’re going to work for me.” “I know a little bit about what you do and to be transparent, it doesn’t sound like my cup of tea, but I appreciate the offer and hopefully I’ll see you in here again.”

I gently let him down. He was like, “Let me send you a copy of my book, The Miracle Morning because can’t knock it until you read it.” I said, “Absolutely. I would love that.” I got it in the mail and unfortunately didn’t read it right away. It actually sat in my car for a little while. Long story short, I was stuck in traffic, pulled over and had nothing to do because my phone was dead. I didn’t have a computer, so I had a book in my car. I sat down and read the entire book. I read it within a few hours. I had his number and I called him immediately. I asked if he needed an assistant still. He was already working with somebody. Her name was Linda and she had been working with him for a while so he wasn’t in need of somebody, but offered me a conversation. Ultimately that conversation led into an internship where I was an unpaid intern for five months. That evolved into an hourly position, which brings me here.

You started as an intern. You go to an hourly role and you’re running the whole operation for him. You didn’t even have any experience per se coming in to that. Was there any educational background or was this your normal street smarts and you pick it up as you go?

I have a degree in Business Management with a minor in Marketing from San Diego State University. When I met Hal, I was actually in my last semester of college, which is why I proposed the internship relationship because I needed one for school anyway. It was enticing from his perspective of, “If you want to work with me, I’ll work for you for free. We can get a feel for each other and see if this is a good fit for both you and me. You’re not losing out on money training me. I’m not personally and financially committed to you.”

I can see it as a good fit for me since I was already a little close-minded about it from the start. It was a win-win, in the exact time period that we met for both of us. He was looking to expand and grow and couldn’t do so without some more help. I was in need of an internship with really no clue what his industry could offer me and what I could offer it. It all linked up. I did have schooling involved but I had no actual tangible experience to bring to the table, which the way that it happened and evolved, I didn’t necessarily need. From Hal’s perspective, I almost was the perfect person to hire because I had no experience, so he can mold me into his perfect employee, if that makes sense.

What was it about his book that you liked or what was it that grabbed you from the book?

Ironically, I get asked this question a lot. I believe that because of where my maturity and close-mindedness was about the self-help industry at that point in time when I met him. If I didn’t meet him before I read the book, I don’t think that the book would have truly had as big of an impact as it did when I did. Reading it after I’d met him, I’d already had a chance spend two hours with him, even though I was his server and it wasn’t an informal situation, I was clearly on the clock. I got to see his energy and to see that he was a genuinely nice person.

His energy was so friendly and he was so engaged in any of the conversations that we had shared. He was super authentic, to sum it up. When I read the book, I could feel that this was truly someone who actually wrote this book to help people. My closed-mindedness at that time with the whole industry was this is a way for people to play off the weaknesses of people who don’t know how to help themselves. They’re going to pick up this book and they’re going to pay this person $20 for it and that person’s going to run away with the $20 and say, “Ha-ha.” I didn’t think that there were people out there like Hal and I’m so glad that he shattered all of those disbeliefs for me.

I’ve always been cynical about that whole industry and it’s almost like his moniker or his tagline. It was almost disconcerting when I met him because I maybe even started to question myself. I’m like, “This guy is just so nice, so real, so genuine and so sharp.” When he asked me to co-author the book, The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs with him, that was why I said yes. It wasn’t on my radar to do that. I was going down my own path and my own trajectory. I’d already had a book on the go and the second one that was I was working on. I started more to be around him and work with him. That was the only reason given for saying yes. It’s turned out to be an amazing success. How many books did he have out at the time? Was it just the The Miracle Morning at the time?

I started with him right when he launched Miracle Morning for Salespeople. He had Real Estate and Salespeople on the way up and coming, but they weren’t fully launched yet. Essentially, yes, the one on the market was only The Miracle Morning and now that we have all of the tons of titles on the market.

The Miracle Morning was a huge success. I wouldn’t even say it’s an overnight success. Can you tell us what was it that you saw? I want to know more about the social media side of things because it’s almost like he created or you guys created a real cult-like following, specifically on your Facebook page, I think. Tell us what you’ve done to create that almost cult-like tribe.

That’s one of the most impressive things not necessarily the start because I joined a few years after the publication of The Miracle Morning. When I started there was literally 8,000 people in The Miracle Morning community on Facebook. Now, we’re at 157,000. I’ve only been working with him for three years. The best part of that is I’m sure there are a majority of people who lurk and actually aren’t engaged, but our statistics that Facebook runs with the analytics show that we have one of the most engaged communities. That truly, I believe, is attributed to the dedication that Hal does in taking time every single day, morning, afternoon and night, one hour a piece, three hours on average a day to actually personally engage with this community.

It’s not just this platform that he built and throws everybody in to have a group, to mention in a book. It literally is serving a purpose of connecting with each other for accountability for your journey using your Miracle Morning, as well getting MM-ers that have like-minded goals and/or using The Miracle Morning like you to answer your questions. Also, to see how talking back to you, liking your posts and congratulating you on 30 days straight of a Miracle Morning. I attribute that to the success of the growth of the community because people see that Hal himself is sticking around in it and engaging. That’s why I think it’s blown up to be as loyal, as large and as consistently engaged more than any group I’ve seen.

I had no idea that it was actually even him doing that. I thought that he had somebody managing that social media platform.

I will be transparent. We do have TMM group moderators. We have these three wonderful people that actually reached out to Hal himself and volunteered their own personal time to help moderate the group. We have a woman named Stephanie who was like, “I believe in this and I want to help make sure that self-promotion or things that aren’t adding value to the community are moderated so that it doesn’t take away from the purpose.” We have a woman named Sally and a man named Hank. All of them volunteer their own personal time, which blows my mind. You have to believe in the purpose of anything to give up your time for no payment whatsoever. It blows my mind. We have me. We have hired a new assistant who we’re trying to grow a position into a social media manager role who goes in and does the same thing. If you see an actual post or a comment with physical words, that is Hal. That is not anyone on his team.

Were you at the event that ran in Chicago? I think it was in 2017, The Appreciative Inquiry Event?

I was.

Is that where these volunteers came out of? Did they spawn from that couple day event?

No. The crazy thing is Sally is actually from the UK, so she’s never been to one of Hal’s events. She was one of the OG members in the community. She’s known Hal longer than I have online. She was a part of the community, when she first read the book, when it was 5,000 members on Facebook. Hal jokingly calls her The Miracle Morning community mom because she’s the one that started daily posts. She does these quotes that she creates memes off of and would post them for accountability purposes for everyone to comment when you woke up. She would constantly do that every day. She offered, as the group grew, to be on the opposite end of the world, helping manage while we were sleeping.

Something that caught me was those posts in the mornings when people were waking up saying, “It’s my second day doing it and this is what I’ve done,” or “I’m on my sixth week and here’s what I’m still working on.” That blew me away, that engagement. You were there when Hal got sick. He’s been pretty public about this, but it was 2018 where he was diagnosed with leukemia, wasn’t it?

It was leukemia.

What’s it feel like when you are the second in command of a company and the CEO who is the brand, by all intents and purposes, then he goes down? Almost goes down for the count, is pretty sick, in and out of the hospital for the course of about a year. How did you handle it? What was going through your mind? Go through that because that’s something that we don’t get a real glimpse of, but I think a lot of people need to think about.

The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs: Elevate Yourself to Elevate Your Business

That was scary from not only a health purpose, but from my job and what I can contribute. He had all of the emotional support from his family and his friends. I saw it as my number one responsibility to not focus on only providing any shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen to, but to step up in my current role. I had no idea what that looks like, seeing I wasn’t trained for this and we didn’t plan for this. A brief overview of where we were at before the cancer came. In June of 2016, five months before the cancer diagnosis, is when I moved from San Diego County to Austin, Texas in order to commit to one year. From June 2016 to June 2017, to commit one year to live in Austin, Texas, in order to make my role 100% virtual. After that, I had every intention of moving back to San Diego.

While I moved in June, the goal was to make myself the role that I was almost essentially be thrown into five months later, but the plan was that twelve months to evolve into that role, not get blindsided and be thrown into it with no choice in five months. It was a role that was going to be mine, but it was thrown at me without the preparation that we anticipated. That’s life and that’s how it works in almost anything. It’s not what happens to you. It’s how you react to it. I saw my purpose in his cancer journey, to support him in the business and do that role that he never wanted me to do. What that looked like was email management to un-booking all of the events that he couldn’t make now and to prioritizing everything that he wanted us to accomplish as a team and figuring out how to do it by myself.

I was taking over all customer service platforms, taking over all social media, becoming the billings and collections person, helping his business partner run the live events without him, so being his second-hand man. Even though I didn’t have a relationship with him, I had to make myself available to him in whatever way he needed, booking and coordinating other things for the future for when he could come back. I was assisting on any marketing efforts and stepping in on ways I wasn’t prepared for. I was using resources like the internet, the people around me and books, essentially is what it looked like.

You guys launched roughly about eight books during that period as well.

That is because of his partnership with Honoree. Obviously, you’re familiar who Honoree is because you published with Hal, but for those who don’t, he brought on a partner, Honoree Corder. She facilitates the production of any of The Miracle Morning titles. She basically is the wonder woman behind every Miracle Morning book in the series in the sense of Hal brings the content, the community and the brands, while Honoree is the brains behind each step by step that goes into self-publishing. We were able to continue on that side of things solely because of Honoree and her assistant Christina’s contributions.

I’ve seen that from behind the scenes. How many employees do you guys have with the employees and freelancers are you managing?

We have two. I was the sole employee, but we hired Jasmine to transition into social media managers. Hal has two employees.

Two employees, but then how many freelance people or how many other people in terms of marketers or temps?

We’ve got three freelancers that are working closely with us.

Do you have all the people that are doing stuff for free or interning?

Yes.

It’s a small company but give us the scope of things. Can you tell us how many books have been sold?

The most exciting news is the international side of things. Hal’s titles have been published in twenty different countries, twenty different languages and expected to be over 30 by the end of this year and it’s growing. That’s one of the most exciting things because as an author, I couldn’t imagine impacting people in your language. It’s having such an impact that it’s being asked to be translated in Chinese, into Spanish, into Portuguese and all of these other parts of the world that want your knowledge because they’re making such a great influence. That’s exciting.

My first book Double Double was picked up and published in Russia and the cover of the book is completely bizarre. I look at it, I’m like, I don’t even know where they came up with the idea for this image because I don’t even think it’s included in the book.

The Miracle Morning UK edition is the only title that looks like something Hal would have it, “I could do that.” Other than that, all of the titles are so interesting. My favorite version is actually the Chinese version because they relied a lot on interpreting what the SAVERS are from The Miracle Morning by using pictures and erasing some of the words. They illustrated a lot in their books. I actually like looking through that. I obviously can’t read a word of it, but I like it.

I’ve admitted to the world when I was co-authoring The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs that at times my morning SAVERS are me rolling over and hugging the pillow. I can’t pull it off every day, but I said that I don’t beat myself up for it. I’ve also got my list of about eighteen insane habits that I tried to do on a daily basis. I have committed to as long as I get five done every day, that’s good enough for me. Do you follow all of the SAVERS? Are you on that same regimen? Tell us honestly, the world, what time do you get up in the morning?

I get up every day at 5:45. I do not get up at 3:30 like Hal. I enjoy my evenings for my own purposes of getting down, connecting with my boyfriend and watching a movie. I stay up a little later than Hal typically does. I’m not up as early as him, but I do during my work days, Monday through Friday, commit to that time because I would feel like a fraud if I didn’t. Being the person that preaches to people how wonderful the SAVERS can impact your life, I would feel like a total hypocrite if I didn’t. Monday through Friday, I do practice starting at 5:45. I do it completely out of order because that’s essentially what the SAVERS are. It’s an accomplishment of those things, not in the exact order.

I think a lot of people get hung up on doing the SAVERS, the exact order of the SAVERS and that is not it at all. It’s the finishing of them. Let’s say if journaling is something you do not enjoy and it almost deters you from accomplishing your other SAVERS because you don’t like journaling. Do three minutes of it and then commit a little more time to something else you actually do enjoy. Over time, that implication of journaling will grow into something that you either stay at three minutes or will evolve. Whatever it is, as long as you’re doing it, that’s what the purpose is. Everyday at 5:45, I get up. I begin walking my dog. That is always my exercise in the morning.

I am focusing on my dog because he is a high energy dog. From there I switch it up because I will get bored if I do the same thing every day. I use apps every day. On my iPhone, I have categories for my Miracle Mornings, all of the SAVERS and they’re all different apps for each of these components. That way I don’t get bored. I switch it up. I journal in different places every day. I use different meditation apps every day. I do something different with my dog every day, whether it’s a trail or whether we go on a hike far away, whatever that looks like.

I actually keep my five-minute journal and my journal beside my bed. Occasionally I’ll actually journal, do my gratitude and affirmations from the bed. Other times I take them with me, go downstairs, grab a coffee and I’ll do them, but then they always end up back on the stairs, getting ready to go back to the bedroom again. They either migrate from the bedside table downstairs and back up or they stick there. I get to lie in bed, have my moment of silence and hang out in the mornings, if I like to hang out in bed a little bit, get that part done. I use the seven-minute workout app as my little exercise. That is a little bit of my cheat. I also found an app called CommitTo3, which is where I’ll set my daily goals and have an accountability partner. That’s been super helpful for me.

Day One is my favorite journal app, especially for those people who do not like journaling. You can actually upload a quick photo and then write, “Today was a great day,” or “This morning I woke up to a beautiful sunrise,” or whatever it looks like. It actually every day reminds you, like every other app, to journal. I like that one, especially for those people who want to exercise and journal or exercise and do another part of their SAVERS. ThinkUp is one of my favorite tools for developing a positive mindset, I use it a lot for my visualization and my meditation. It’s great for affirmations too. It’s an all-in-one type of an app. Those are my personal favorites. We don’t have any relationship with either of those. I’m giving my opinion.

My friend mine told me that they get the Webster Word of the Day emailed to them. They try to use that in their scribing and their morning journal. They try to actually use the word of the day a few times. I’m like, “That’s brilliant. A fun way to kick start your morning is to journal but also to get your mind going.” I thought that was fun. Tell me, how did you and Hal work on growing the business when he was in the hospital? What tools did you use? How did you keep communication channels open? Walk us through what you guys did.

To be transparent, we didn’t do too much together. His main priority was focusing on healing, as well as maintaining a semi-normal environment for his kids. Work was the last thing on his mind and that’s the last thing I wanted to do. If I ever did reach out to him, it was because of level ten emergency, “I can’t answer this without you,” type situation. I will be honest, during that time he was in the hospital, I used Google as my best friend. I utilized all the relationships that we had from Hal’s community that we have previously worked with, people that we knew from a professional relationship to ask for advice upon. I read a lot while he was in cancer, in his treatments because reading I feel is the greatest tool. If you aren’t using that, then that is something that you should start doing. It’s utilizing other people that have learned from their situation to grow, so that way you don’t have to go through it. I honestly didn’t talk to him much during his treatment. I did everything that I could to answer it for myself.

You probably had the most self-growth of any leader during that period of time as well because you forced yourself to figure it out, instead of going to him for permission or going to him for ideas. Learning from other people, I call that R and D as Rip off and Duplicate. If so many companies have figured this stuff out, why are we trying to figure it out on our own?

One of my favorite podcasts that Hal has ever done was when he interviewed Joe Polish. I am going to reel in what he said, but he said something along the lines of, “When people tell me they haven’t picked up a book in years, it blows my mind. Why are you forcing yourself to go through experiences when you could simply pick up a book and learn from other people’s mistakes? It doesn’t mean you have to implement it, but learn from a situation that had helped you skip all of this adversity and grief. Go forward and skip it. It’s a time machine, using a book.”

Director Of Operations: No one on this planet is great at everything.

It’s funny that you mentioned Joe Polish. Joe is my daily accountability partner. Joe and I set our weekly goals together using the app Commit to Three. Joe writes up his top three goals for the day, I got them, I write up mine and he gets them. At the end of the day, I was clicking them off. We have that buy-in from the other person and also a bit of the guilt. It’s funny that you’re talking about Joe. That’s actually where I met Hal. I first met Hal at the Genius Network. We were both Genius Network members and how it grows. He came up to me at one of the breaks and asked me if I wanted to co-author the book. I looked at him and went, “Done.” He goes, “I’ll send you the details.” I’m like, “It doesn’t matter. I’m in. I’ll do this, whatever it is.”

The greatest thing about Hal is, he’s got contagious energy and personality where you’re like “Anything to be around you because you make me feel like a better person.”

I’ve always said when you’re early stage companies or smaller companies, the COO of the Second in Command really needs to be the jack of all trades, master of none. Is that true of you or have you got some specific areas that you’re finding that you maybe migrate towards as your unique abilities?

I am truly almost the definition of a jack of all trades, in the sense of it’s one of my biggest strengths but also a weakness. I wear so many hats within Hal’s company that I’m good at a lot of things, but I haven’t been great at one thing. I don’t have the capacity to hone in on one of my roles because I do have so many other things that I have to do. That’s an exciting thing about being able to bring in a new employee and to train her. She’s in the training phase, so she’s not on her own yet.

Once she is, I will be able to focus on the things that I can do that will serve the growth and the expansion of the company better and things that I enjoy more. Social media management is not my forte. I don’t like it, which is why she’s going to be a social media manager. By taking that off my plate, I hopefully will be able to dive more into the marketing aspects of things, being more involved on a co-creating each of our live events. My role is all across the board. Good at a lot of things, not great at a lot of things.

That sounds like the perfect fit. That’s the jack of all trades, master of none. How do you know what to be working on? Are you co-creating the priorities for the company or are you deciding what to be working on? How much leeway does Hal give you in figuring that stuff out? How much do you turn to him for direction on core projects or goals for the year?

Since the cancer, and I was on my own from there, I’ve been my own time manager and my own prioritizer. The only thing that Hal does as far as tasks and directions for me is I’d say about two times a week, he says, “I need this done by today,” or “Get this done by Friday.” It’s sending out an email blast to certain people on his list, creating a landing page for people to opt-in for something or something along those lines. It’s me knowing what has to be done day to day, knowing those goals, prioritizing wisely from important and urgent to least important, eliminating those distractions and getting them done. I know what to do and every now and then Hal comes in and says, “Please get this done.”

What do you think your biggest weaknesses are? Are you struggling with anything specifically?

The biggest thing I am struggling with and have been for a couple of months is managing Hal’s Facebook pages, particularly speaking of the two fan pages he has, which is Hal Elrod fan page and the fan page for The Miracle Morning. Those get so many messages a day of people saying, “I’m really struggling with journaling. What do I do?” or, “I’m really depressed. How can this help me?” They’re reaching out to somebody like Hal for direction and for strengthening their Miracle Morning. Getting to those is a very delicate and in-depth process because Hal is very particular about answering those.

How he’s created the community is by answering every single one of those that comes in. I know how important those are. Prioritizing my time wisely in order to answer those everyday has probably been my biggest weakness, which is why I looked at Hal and said I need to bring someone on to focus mainly on that. I want to make sure we get it done, but each answer is so unique and is so different from all the rest that there’s no template that can be created. Every answer has got to be unique to the person asking. It is hours of the day, honestly.

You’re not kidding when you say that it gets a huge amount of traffic and a huge amount of comments. When you’re done with this, maybe hop over to the page and take a look at it. It’s pretty incredible how much engagement there is. What do you do when the book goes into these multiple countries and multiple languages? Hal can’t be answering questions in China and Czechoslovakia. Are you going to have moderators over there that do that or are you going to try to build those communities in those markets? Do what you’re doing there?

The publishers have every right in their realm to create their own group if they wish. However, people have taken it upon themselves to create groups within Facebook for the French edition or the Chinese edition or whatever it may be. All we ask is that Hal is a moderator of it but they have free control. At the end of the day, somebody can take anybody’s content and create a support group off of it, which may or may not be crossing the line. We don’t manage those, but I will say if you go to Hal’s site MiracleMorning.com or HalElrod.com, there’s a contact button and we get I’d probably say about twenty messages a day that gets sent to my inbox and they’re in other languages.

I have to visit the copy and paste, put it in a translator and it’s just a, “Thank you for your book. It changed my life,” or “Can you explain what the visualization means or recommend any books on that?” I physically have to go find books that are in Chinese that have good ratings and then preface it with, “I’ve never read this and Hal’s not associated with these people, but I found this online. This is what visualization means and this is how you can do it.” We are getting questions sent in from all over the world in all types of languages that I do answer every day.

It sounds like that’s going to be one of the next areas you have to hire for as well because you’ve got to start working towards your unique ability too. What’s the purpose of the live events that you’re running?

We have two live events that we run. The main one is open to the general public. That is my personal favorite of everything that we do at Hal Elrod International. It’s called Best Year Ever Live. It’s held in San Diego every year in December and you can get more information on the Best Year Ever at www.BestYearEverLive.com. This event is basically literally creating a blueprint for you to, as the name says, have your best year ever. We bring in speakers, Zumba teachers, musicians and influencers from all walks of life in order to give you that blueprint to achieve whatever it is that you’re there for. We have people that come there for strengthening their relationship. They bring their kids to enhance their kids’ development. They come as an entrepreneur who wants to start a business. They come as a millionaire that wants to grow themselves even more or their business. There’re all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons that come to this event.

I think that’s why it’s my favorite because no matter what you’re there for, no matter who you are or where you’re at, this event has value. I think that’s very rare for a live event to be able to cater literally to anyone. It’s so impressive. The other live events that we do are a closed group. It’s called Quantum Leap Mastermind. We do two retreats a year and this is a more intimate coaching group. We have about fifteen members that come to each of the retreats in different places every time. Hal and his partner Jon Berghoff co-create these events in order to specifically help this group of individuals achieve whatever it is that they’re there for. It’s very masterfully strategized based off of this intensive application that we make them fill out in order to better serve them. That’s the other live events that we throw.

Before I met Hal at the Genius Network Event, the mastermind that we both belonged to, I was told about him from a friend of mine, John Ruhlin. John worked with Cutco, as did Hal, then Jon Bergoff’s partner on the events worked with Cutco. I like all three of these guys. I’ve met two or three other guys that have been involved with Cutco since. Brad Weimert who’s from Austin as well, he’s one of my favorite guys on the planet. What is it with that company and the DNA that they’ve created? Does Hal mention them at all to you?

I am very familiar with every single person that you mentioned, as they come to almost all the events that Hal puts on and they’re very close to Hal. I know them from a professional standpoint and a little bit personally. I don’t have the answer for you, but they’re breeding some rad people out there. I don’t know what it is but I want them to keep coming our way.

I may actually stop talking about them publicly and start hiring them because it’s very similar to the group that I came out of, College Pro Painters, where we had a really strong DNA of people that we were grooming. Kimbal Musk, Elon’s brother, worked for me. The CEO of Solar City was at College Pro with me as well. Some amazing dynamic leaders that came out of that background and it seems that Cutco did a great job. Maybe I’ll just stop talking about them and start hiring or partnering with them. One question I want to ask you is the movie. Who has a movie made about them? Hal’s got a movie being made about him and his life and The Miracle Morning. It’s premiering I think this summer in Sedona. What’s going on with that?

We actually did our first live screening. It was a test screening for our Miracle Morning launch team that will give us feedback. It went great. It was amazing. There’s a bunch of crying because of the element of cancer that was put in at the end, intensifying that part of Hal’s journey. I’m passionate about the purpose of the film, which is to reach the people that won’t read. A reality check is everyone’s not going to read. Those who aren’t reading might dabble in documentaries. This could be an exciting part of the market that we can reach with the SAVERS to accomplish that goal of changing millions of lives by getting into that market, to where we can get to those people that refuse to pick up that book or maybe even motivate them to pick up that book because of the documentary. I’m excited about this.

Here’s what I’m excited about. I’m trying to figure out how you do a movie, multiple books, live events, deal with the CEOs, hospital, cancer and you’re doing that with a couple of employees a few freelancers. That’s insane.

I think it’s because it is all because of who Hal is as a person. If people haven’t met Hal, they’re trying to fathom a person in their head that can create such a presence about themselves. People literally jump to every opportunity to help you. I hope one day everyone listening can meet him because then it’ll click instantly, within twenty seconds of meeting him. He’s one of those people that everyone wants to serve him because he serves them. It’s something about him that everybody wants to take and help him execute that mission that he has. You do it by creating people that are there on that same journey with you and can help you take that to reality.

He seems to me like the new more modern day version and much more grounded version of Tony Robbins. He’s not the high cheese, big energy. He does have the energy, but he’s more grounded, real, approachable and normal. There’s something about what he’s doing that everyone does want to help him out. He is that, “Aw, gee, shucks,” that I think everyone does have to go to one of his events for sure. Give us one parting word of wisdom that you would give us. For somebody coming in an intern role and moving into the COO role or anything about the leadership that you’ve picked up, what’s one big lesson that you would want to impart to anyone reading?

From my personal experience, the hardest thing to come to terms with when I was rising up in the role than I am was creating the space for weaknesses and for failures. I’m my own toughest critic. When I’m not excelling on a project or using a system as well as I should be, I typically tend to beat myself up in an unproductive way. That’s not useful for my work or my growth, both professionally and personally. After I was able to identify that that was something that was an issue with me, I accepted that this was something that I needed to work on. I’ve actively been able to take a step back and to pull from the people and the resources that I mentioned about all around me to help succeed, rather than putting all that pressure on my own knowledge or my own self. Getting over myself in the sense of realizing that no one on this planet is great at everything, so it’s okay to ask for help, is how you grow. That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned from the years that I’m working for Hal.

Director Of Operations: To ask for help is really how you grow.

Can you give us a specific example of that?

In the business world, I have a very what they call a perfect personality, to where if somebody gives me a task, I’m going to execute it. I am going to try to do it flawlessly and provide you my best work. For example, when I was learning, we use a CRM system called Infusionsoft that some people may be aware of. During his cancer phase, we lost our billings and collections woman. That had to have me step into that role. I am by no means an accounting major. I’m not familiar with this system. I didn’t know anything about it. Having to learn that entire system, while already at 150% capacity was a time where I had to step back. I realized I needed help. I hired somebody to train me on it, step back and breathe. I realized that I might not be the best at this, but I will get better. To relax because it’s not an overnight thing, that’s the first thing to come to mind.

That’s a huge one. For anybody who’s using InfusionSoft or Confusionsoft, there’s a great company out there called SixthDivision. Brad Martineau is the CEO and he’s also in the Genius Network with Hal and me. He runs Sixth Division. They’re the only people I’ve ever met who love InfusionSoft because a lot of you like it. The ones who love it are the ones that had Sixth Divisions set up all of their systems within InfusionSoft. Thank you for chatting with us and giving us some of the insights that you’ve had, for sharing the lessons in the path of you being the chief behind the chief and being the second in command for Hal Elrod. Say hi to him for us and we’ll see you at one of the upcoming events.

Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Important Links:

About Tiffany Swineheart

Tiffany Swineheart, the Director of Operations at Hal Elrod International. Hal Elrod is a #1 international bestselling author of The Miracle Morning, top-rated keynote speaker, and host of the Best Year Ever [Blueprint] LIVE Event.

During her last three years at H.E.I, Tiffany has transitioned from an unpaid intern to an executive assistant and now functions as his Director of Operations.

Ep. 13 – Transitioning From An Unpaid Intern To Director Of Operations with Tiffany Swineheart

Transitioning From An Unpaid Intern To Director Of Operations with Tiffany Swineheart

Important Links:

About Tiffany Swineheart

Cameron Herold

COO ALLIANCE

Contact Us