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Mind · Episode 40

Cultivating Positive Activity for Entrepreurship with Lori Rogers

with Lori Rogers

Aug 1, 2025 · 00:34:09

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Cultivating Positive Activity for Entrepreurship with Lori Rogers
with Lori Rogers
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Mind00:34:09Episode 40

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Entrepreneurship & Leadership62Meditation & Mindfulness28Resilience & Mental Toughness25Manifestation & Law of Attraction21ADHD & Neurodiversity10
John Torrens

Today's guest brings a powerful message about how simple mindset shifts and daily activities can unlock extraordinary growth, not just in business, but in life. Lori Rogers is the president and co-founder of Rogers Marketing, a multimillion-dollar woman-owned business built on relationships and positivity. She's also the founder of Positive Activity, a proven framework that helps individuals and teams achieve professional success and personal wellbeing through mindset shifts and action-based habits. Lori speaks widely on sales, leadership, organizational culture, and resilience, and her work offers transformative lessons for entrepreneurs and leaders navigating today's challenges. Welcome to The Total Entrepreneur: Mind, Body, Spirit, where we turn cutting-edge science into practical strategies for entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Dr. John Torrance, Entrepreneur Inc. 5000 honoree and professor of entrepreneurial practice at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management. Each episode, we dive into mental, physical, and spiritual health with expert guests offering actionable insights to help you thrive and perform at your highest level. Let's get started. Hey, Laurie, welcome. Really great to have you.

Lori Rogers

Thank you, John. I'm excited to be here for this discussion today.

John Torrens

Yeah, yeah. I was doing a little research on the work you do and your background, and I'm excited to talk to you about it because I think, I think mindset is so important in entrepreneurship and in life. And, and I know you've got a few things to, to say about it, so let's get to it.

Lori Rogers

You know, I do.

John Torrens

Yeah. Well, so the, the first thing I was wondering is what, what is positive activity and how did you first develop this approach?

Lori Rogers

Well, I first developed, let me, let me do the second question first.

John Torrens

Sure.

Lori Rogers

I, um, the way it was developed was, uh, crazy in back in 2011 when there was a recession.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

And things were tough and businesses were closing. Many of our clients lost their jobs or weren't ordering anymore. We have a swag business, right? So anything you can do corporate logo on at corporate stores, awards, appreciation programs, all that good stuff. And I was like, ugh, this doesn't feel good. This is uneasy. This is weird. I, I was, Anxious, I was fearful. When are we going to get orders again? How are we going to pay our suppliers? Ba ba ba ba ba. Like those, that little inner critic, that little wheel kept going on and on. Now, under normal conditions, maybe had some little skills to help recover from that. But at the same time, my son with a non-speaker with autism was transitioning out of high school into the adult world. My daughter at that same exact time was recovering from, um, a sports injury that she had. She played D1 lacrosse and she was recovering from post-concussion syndrome.

John Torrens

Where did she play? Just out of curiosity.

Lori Rogers

She played at BU.

John Torrens

Oh, cool.

Lori Rogers

Okay. Yeah, but we did play at Syracuse, so it was fun. So we, all of those things, I didn't have the skills. At that time, or the tools at that time, to sort of regroup and just get it back together and feel better and just have a better outlook every day. I just forged ahead, forged ahead, forged ahead. And because you had to, right? You have a family, you've got kids, you've got this business, you have customers, you have orders, whatever. Yeah. So given that my daughter was home, she couldn't drive, she couldn't use her phone, she couldn't watch TV, she could whatever. Mom. She said, will you take me to a wellness fair? I'm like, what the hell is a wellness fair? But sure, let's go. And we went to this wellness fair and I was introduced to the concepts of words, thoughts become your beliefs.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Become entrenched in your subconscious mind, become what the universe matches your outer world to your inner world.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Okay, well, like, timeout. What are you talking about? And what is this? And how did I not know it? And so I, I, we learned, we went to presentations, I bought books. So this is in 2011, 2012, 13 years ago. And all that time I just kept reading and learning and doing. And little by little, that cage of fear and worry and doubt started to fade and started to melt. Um, so little by little. And then what happened with positive activity was I went to some presentations and some workshops and learned that many of the activities that I was doing or learned to do were scientifically researched to improve, like, you know, increase your sales on average 30, 37%, increase your productivity 31%, keep you more resilient to illness. You have better teams that want to work with you because you're Higher vibration. You're lighter. You're happier. You're more optimistic every day. You just so many things. It's like okay, whoa! This is super cool that these things are scientifically based to do all these amazing things. How can we not teach it? How can I not teach this? How can I want everyone to know? So that's how the positive activity process got started. I just started going out. And I know I didn't charge. I just did it for free. I just felt like, no, I wanna go and teach people. So I would go to entrepreneur events, um, or I had friends that were entrepreneurs and they would get like their teams together. Mm-hmm. Um, and I would, I would just do it just to practice it. I'm like, I want everyone to know that you can change your reality and this is how you can do it.

John Torrens

Yeah. So who were, who were some of your teachers or influencers or, or what were you reading? What kind of conferences were you going to? 'Cause it, I, I, I, it feels like we had similar experiences, but I'm, I'm curious as to who influenced You along the way.

Lori Rogers

I think Louise Hay influenced me initially. First, Abraham Hicks. I read the book Think and Grow Rich, which that was written in what, 1935 or something?

John Torrens

Yeah, it's old. Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Around a long time.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

So write this one down though. Sean Achor, A-C-H-O-R, has an amazing TED Talk.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

12 minutes and 53 seconds of wonderfulness. Like, and he sums it up in 12 minutes. I'm like, oh my God.

John Torrens

I actually assigned that video to my students. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Lori Rogers

So I read all of his books, um, and, and did that. I'm looking at all my books now on my bookshelf. So those people, um, and now I, what re— oh, Dr. Doherty just wrote a book, um, Mind Magic. That was new. I just read that. So, anything I can pick up that I see something different and new, I grab it.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Yes, exactly. I loved it.

John Torrens

I'm halfway through it.

Lori Rogers

Okay. Yeah, I loved it.

John Torrens

Oh, so cool. Yeah. No, it's like once you get into these philosophies, which by the way have been around for millennia, right? They're not brand new things that people are just coming up with. It's like a rehashing or a rediscovering of these principles, which is just amazing. And now, I think you alluded to it, but, you know, now the science and the research is catching up to it and can, you know, validate it, if you will, right?

Lori Rogers

Yes.

John Torrens

Wow. Yeah.

Lori Rogers

So people are like, they'll buy in. So if I go into a corporation and I go in front of, and I, we present in front of their sales team.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Um, they're more likely, I find, to like really lean in when I say, okay, I do, I present the research first.

John Torrens

Right.

Lori Rogers

This is the research. These are the results. Logical mind going, wanna learn how to do this? Okay. And it's free. Uh-huh. Free things that you can do in your home or your office every day and boom, there you go.

John Torrens

Yeah. So what are, what are some examples, right? So can you describe maybe a moment or a few moments where applying this positive activity and these principles made a difference in your life or the life of the people you work with?

Lori Rogers

Absolutely. The first thing I do Upon stepping out of bed in the morning, I have a little card on my bedside table and it's positive statements. It's positive affirmations. Because what happens is, and God love our brains, right? But they tend to go back to the story we were telling yesterday. So it's going to go back to maybe that negative thing or that event or that worry or that fear. So I have something positive that I read to myself. And then I walk into the bathroom, I give myself a high five. So if you haven't read The High Five Habit, I love that too.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Uh, that was written by Mel Robbins. And there's all this cool research around giving yourself a high five, saying something amazing and wonderful, looking at yourself in your eyes.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

And just pumps you up and primes you for your day. So I like to call it start your day before your day starts you.

John Torrens

Mm-hmm.

Lori Rogers

So this is before I look at a text, before I look at an email, or God forbid, social media, right? Like, no, nothing, none of that yet. Then I grab my coffee, my journal, and I write down 3 different things. So each day it's different, 3 unique things that I appreciate that happened the day before within the last 24 hours. So I think about them, I feel the emotion again. And our brains don't know whether it's happening right now or it happened yesterday.

John Torrens

Right. Or if it even happened in physical reality, right? It could have just happened in our mind, right?

Lori Rogers

Yes. Terrific. So I do that and I think about those things and then I write down a conscious recall. So just like a few sentences of something wonderful that happened yesterday. Um, maybe with my son who's my nonspeaker or something cool that happened with a supplier or someone actually called me and thanked me that they got their order on time. You know, these little things that brought me joy. It's a little different than the appreciation. It's just something that put a smile on my face. And again, your brain's like, oh, how fun. Like, you're really— no, it's just gonna— it, it's there. You're feeding it information all the time. So feed it good stuff.

John Torrens

Yeah. Next up.

Lori Rogers

I meditate for 5 to 10 to 15 minutes depending on the morning. And I do, I work out every day. I, and then again at night I have that same card, not, it's a different card, but at night I tell myself something positive and amazing and wonderful about my abundance, about my business, about my, my family so that I go to sleep with those thoughts. in the brain. Um, so I, I try to attack it from all angles because, you know, John, I grew up a worrywart, a worrywart, and everything had to be perfect. It was this, it was that. And, you know, and I wanted to release that. And when you're an entrepreneur, something different, something crazy, something annoying can happen every single day, right?

John Torrens

Oh, it's guaranteed, right?

Lori Rogers

Yeah. So, I needed the skills to not go down in the ditch every time something not great happened. And yeah.

John Torrens

Yeah. So, so it sounds like you're very intentional on the, the self-talk and the, the words and the thoughts that, that you have because, because you know, and you've learned that they matter and they make a real difference. So yeah, that, that's fantastic. I think that's, that's, uh, yeah, anybody could use that. And like you said, it's free. It doesn't cost you anything. It's not a pill. It's not a guru or workshop. It's actually something you could do right now. Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Yeah.

John Torrens

That's great.

Lori Rogers

Yeah.

John Torrens

So, so you mentioned, you know, entrepreneurship, you know, being constant challenges and you, I mean, you grew a multimillion dollar business, right? So how has mindset influenced that journey? So like, have you, I mean, you've been at it for a while, so you must have seen a shift. So I'm just kind of interested in mindset and how it influenced your journey.

Lori Rogers

Well, it influenced me because now If there's a challenge that comes up or someone doesn't like their order or it's not going to ship on time now, instead of, grrr, and reaction and, grrr, fighting back or screaming and yelling at a supplier or whatever, I sit back and I can, I can just say, okay, I can take a breath. I can think. And I think, all right, how is this happening for me? Not to me. What is this teaching me right now? Okay, a little patience, a little calmness. So when your brain is working from a higher vibration and it's more positive and optimistic, ideas flow to you easier. They're always flowing to you, but sometimes we're so gnarled up, we're not accepting them or hearing them or—

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

We dismiss them. But when your mind is more optimistic and positive, you're hearing them and they're coming in. Oh, okay. This is— so I just sit for a bit and the challenges can— I can address them differently now. And I don't— and I don't go— well, I might come down a few notches, but usually I don't go down in the ditch too much anymore. Not that I don't feel anxious sometimes. Of course I do.

John Torrens

Right.

Lori Rogers

But I'm able to work out of it. and just recover from it, feel it, process it, then move on to the project and finish the project, or if, you know, create what needs to happen to fix that challenge. So when in 2020, when COVID happened and that same like, oh, that like heart-wrenching fear and worry and doubt, oh my gosh, you know, nobody's buying anything, nobody's doing anything. We can't go see our clients anymore. And for about a week or two, like it was like, oh, that, that. And I said, wait a minute, I've been here before. I remember this from before. And it all worked out. Everything started to flow. So what we decided to do now, I'm in partners in our swag business with my husband Neil and in Positive Activity as well. And we said, okay, let's email every single one of our clients individually and ask them if we can have their home address because they're all home.

John Torrens

Mm-hmm.

Lori Rogers

And we started sending them swag. We're here for you if you need us. You know, what are you gonna, you know, so what happened in that time, which was very interesting, is our clients started sending appreciation gifts to their employees that were at home. So we had a whole, we had to rework that whole thing of finding fulfillment houses, people that would do mailing for us, or we did it in our garage. whatever we needed to do. So it helped me so much because now we could think of new ways and new ideas. I was open to the new ideas coming in. Yeah.

John Torrens

Yeah. So, I mean, it sounds like there's an element of resilience that you were able just to build in, right? And, you know, some of the things you talked about, right? Like not looking at your phone right away, doing the things you're grateful for, exercising. Those are all great daily practices and daily activities. Are there others maybe that you recommend that you don't personally do? Or basically what I'm looking for is, you know, daily activities that can help build resilience for entrepreneurs who, who need it. I mean, because they, you know, there, there's gonna be ups and downs and that resilience is gonna be key to their success.

Lori Rogers

Yes, I agree. I like to, I like to explain that, and Shawn Achor calls it this too, your happiness level, right? So I like to, Doing all of those activities in the morning build up your happiness level, which is resilience. So it's the same thing. Yes, I have more resilience now. Yes. And I think it's because of all those activities that I've been doing. But it's not only that. It's also just a frame of mind. It's your perspective has to change. And what I learned through the research, especially from The Happiness Advantage, is I always thought, get good grades, get into that college, get the great job, then you're gonna be happy. You know, get the car, then you're gonna be happy. Have the relationship, then you're gonna be happy. But in reality, our brains work in the opposite way, which is what—

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Ecor research showed that no, no, no, no. Be it first before you see it, right? So I don't mean pretend, But I mean, go to the emotion of having it now and then see what happens. So we can, even though we don't have, let's say I want that new car. I don't really have it right now, but I can go to the emotion of what it's going to feel like to have it. Because why do we want anything? The only reason we want stuff is to make us feel better. So go to the feeling first. We know what that can feel like.

John Torrens

Right.

Lori Rogers

Mm-hmm. Maybe it's the new job, maybe it's the new client. What is that gonna feel like when I land that first sale with that new client? Oh my gosh.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Go to that feeling every day as much as you can. Yeah.

John Torrens

You know, it's an interesting dynamic there, right? Because like, like the example of the car, right? Like, you know, maybe you think you want the car or maybe you need it cuz you need to get to work or, or, or whatever it is. Right. But it, like you said earlier, like achieving the thing often Hardly ever makes you happy, right? But being in your happiness and finding a way to experience that attracts the things you might want or need anyway, right? So, like if you're if you're thinking you need the car in order to be happy, right? Because you need the car to get to work so you can have a job and pay your bills so you'll be happier or whatever the logic is. You know, I wonder and I don't wonder if you've ever experienced this. Like you don't get the thing that you really wanted even though you may have thought about it and you may have internalized the feelings of how wonderful it's going to get to. to have— be to have that car, right? But you don't get it. Maybe is there a, like, a larger force at work, like, saying, hey, you know what, it wasn't actually the car, dummy. Like, what you really want or need is something different, you know?

Lori Rogers

Yes, I love that concept. On top of my vision board, it says, this or something better. I love that.

John Torrens

Yep, this or something better. Yeah.

Lori Rogers

But I may want that shiny new red car, but, but the universe says, no, no, no, This over here is gonna be amazing for you and you don't even know it yet. Right? So I say, you know, I have my, my vision board, my, my things that goals are, are my intentions of what I would like to create in my life. And I say this or something better because maybe, you know, that client isn't so— this happened to us actually. That client may not be so great for you. Maybe they're not gonna pay their, you know, their, um, bills on time.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Or maybe this, Gonna, so we, we became. I had a client. We had a client that was oh we were their number one supplier for a long time, and then they went through some changes and da da da. We became their number two supplier. So of course I was like devastated and bummed and da da da da. And and I was like okay well whatever. You know I'm gonna work as hard as I ever did for them. Number two's fine. I there's plenty there for everyone. Plenty for everyone. And about three months later. we garnered another new client that was probably, I don't know, 20 times bigger than that one. I thought, oh, that's why that happened. I wouldn't have had the time and space, right, for this big thing if I also had that over there. And it just, it, it all worked out.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

And then that original client got sold and another company took them over anyways. They're like, So, maybe the universe was looking out for us and looking out for me at that time. And that's what I say is like this or something better.

John Torrens

Yeah, that's a great motto. I love that. And, you know, I have an affirmation that, you know, when I need it, I use it. I just say, you know, my name is John and only good stuff happens for me. Like, I say that to myself, you know?

Lori Rogers

Right.

John Torrens

Yeah, yeah. So, in your experience, how can leaders balance positivity with the realities of running a demanding business, right? Like all the things we've talked about, They're realities. They happen. So how do we achieve that balance and make it happen?

Lori Rogers

I don't know if I believe in balance. I think some days it's like 80/20 and some days it's like 60/40. We had this business now for 27 years. My youngest was 3 years old when we started. And like, I never had balance. Somebody something always got left, like the house was a mess, or—

John Torrens

Right.

Lori Rogers

The sink was whatever, or, you know, or I had to leave the— I wanted to leave the office to go do things with my children at school or volunteer or things like that. So balancing time is one thing, but balancing— let's say you have employees. I think the greatest thing you can do for your employees is show appreciation. I've read an article that most people leave their jobs because they don't feel appreciated.

John Torrens

And yeah, you know, I read that too. They don't leave jobs, they leave bosses. Yeah, right.

Lori Rogers

Yeah, they don't feel appreciated. So sending appreciation to your employees— we have many clients that do you know, 3 or 4 times a year, they send everyone something, uh, at Christmas time or holiday time, something.

John Torrens

Mm-hmm.

Lori Rogers

Um, you know, there's wellness fairs, something, barbecues, something. You know, they, they really do make an effort to impress upon their employees how much they care about them and how much they appreciate them. I think appreciation is the number one thing you can do for your teams. And, you know, if you, if you enter a meeting or a Zoom and you're optimistic, you're calm, you're at peace, you're not gossiping or you're not—

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Being mean about something else or negative about this event, and you stay up and you're appreciating people and you're listening, listening, like, right? 2 ears, you know, one mouth. Well, I think teams respect you and they wanna emulate that.

John Torrens

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, besides the fact that you're just sending out signals of positivity and calm and receptivity and innovation, creativity, right? That those are all parts of it. So, so that makes me think of other, other mistakes that you might, or, or maybe mistaken beliefs or mistakes or, Poor practices that you see entrepreneurs or leaders make when it comes to either mindset, mind shift, growth mentality, things like that?

Lori Rogers

Right. Well, I look at things like nothing is ever a mistake to me or a failure, but it's a learning experience. So hopefully if an entrepreneur or a boss or a, a team leader Doesn't handle something a great way, or is always and you know always has to be right, or is not a great listener, or doesn't take feedback well, or what have you. How can you learn from that? And you're aware. I mean, here's the thing: you have to be aware. You have to have self-awareness, right? To be able to say, "Oh, wait a minute! I probably didn't handle that so well." Oh my gosh! There were several times, just even in the last year, where I reacted not the way I wanted to react to a situation. So I, I pick up the phone and I call that supplier or call— it's never with a customer, but it's usually like a supplier or—

John Torrens

Right, right.

Lori Rogers

Even in our corporate office or something. I'm like, I am so sorry I reacted that way. That was terrible. And, but people have to have the self-awareness. in order to do that. And I think people will respect that and care. I don't know if that answered your question, but there— I think that those were learning experiences for me. And I say, okay, next time, Yeah. I'll sit back, I'll think about it. I won't be so reactive and, you know, approach it in a different way.

John Torrens

Yeah. So yeah, maybe instead of looking at it as a mistake you might make, it's, it's a learning opportunity, right? But I think it, there's also an element of, you know, just having that observer mindset, right? So, you know, I try to do this too. Like if I'm human, right? So I'm gonna lose my cool, I'm gonna get upset, but I try to just step back and observe that and say, okay, there was me being human. Um, I gotta check myself here, right? And, and, and do some sort of practice that gets me back into, you know, coherence and, and so I can move on. So.

Lori Rogers

Yeah.

John Torrens

Yeah, I think having that observer mindset is really important.

Lori Rogers

Yes, I agree.

John Torrens

Yeah, yeah. So, what are some of your favorite things about doing this work with positivity and mindset?

Lori Rogers

Oh my gosh. So, when I'm in front of a crowd, in front of a team, and getting the lean in and the listening and them writing it down and they're asking questions, like, that to me fills my heart. It jazzes me. I love it. teaching this. I want everyone to know about these habits that you can start doing to improve your life and improve that worry and fear and doubt that you may feel. I just, I just love that. And we do mainly in-person things, in-person events. I mean, some here and there, someone will want me to do Zoom, but that energy that you feel, you know, you know, back and forth with an audience is Yeah, it's super cool.

John Torrens

I know. I mean, I, I, it's similar for me, but different. I mean, I work with, uh, college students, right? So they're not like corporate clients or anything like that, but it's still similar.

Lori Rogers

Yeah.

John Torrens

I, I just taught a course using these principles and it was really cool because students have a hunger for this. Like they, they know it intuitively that this is, this is real or it's something they can apply. It's something they need to learn about, but there's really, there's no, you know, college course on it, at least in a serious business school, right? Until now. So, that was really rewarding. Yeah, no, it was super fun just to see the students really engaging with it and getting it and applying it. It was just, I mean, what a fun experience it was. So, yeah, I'm with you on that. Just seeing somebody else light up and say, yeah, I can do this, is really cool. Yeah.

Lori Rogers

I also read that it takes— oh, how many days? 21. That was what it was. 21 days to have something become a habit. So what I like to tell people is like, okay, so you're gonna sit down and meditate for a minute. Do a minute. I started doing 30 seconds. That was all I could sit and do. But just remember, it takes 21 days for something to be, um, to become a habit. So give yourself a break. Give yourself some grace.

John Torrens

Yeah. Yeah.

Lori Rogers

If you can only do a minute, do a minute.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

And then, you know, things like that. Yeah. Yeah.

John Torrens

And once it becomes a habit, if you break the habit, give yourself a break. Right. So I, I think that's part of what we're talking about is just the, the self-talk, right? Be gentle on yourself. Don't beat yourself up or think you're an idiot or you can't ever stick to something. Or in an entrepreneurial context, you're not good enough. You're not smart enough. You don't have the best network. You can't raise money. You don't know how to sell, you know, or whatever.

Lori Rogers

Right.

John Torrens

It's that. That mindset that is so important.

Lori Rogers

Yeah.

John Torrens

Yeah. I love that about the way you think.

Lori Rogers

And now I think entrepreneurs are, you know, when we started 27 years ago, there was barely the internet. I remember faxing orders in. Okay. And, but so now I feel like entrepreneurs have so much pressure on them. I've gotta be on Facebook. I have to be on Instagram. I have to post on LinkedIn every day. Do this. I have to do that. I have to do an email campaign. It's like, Oh, you know, so it's, it's, they're, they're being bombarded with all of these things. And the more that you can stay centered and grounded and, you know, pick one thing that you want to be really good at, or when you get to the point, hire someone, let them— that's what I do. Like, let them handle the social media aspect of it.

John Torrens

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The things that you don't want to do or not good at or just resist, right? Yeah. Find somebody who, by the way, probably likes it and is good at it. It takes that guilt off you. Yeah. Yeah.

Lori Rogers

Yes.

John Torrens

You know, so we have one other, uh, thing in common. I didn't, I don't know if you knew this about me, but I'm a, I'm a speech language pathologist and I, my business works with young kids, uh, with disabilities, many of whom are on the autism spectrum. So I, you mentioned your 33-year-old son with autism.

Lori Rogers

Right.

John Torrens

And I know you do programs for special needs in that community. Yeah. So, so talk to us about that cuz that's a, a cool area where our, our lives, uh, overlap a little bit.

Lori Rogers

Oh my gosh. So Craig is now 34. When he was in school from 3 to 22, we had a, um, a 501. It was called Parents Assisting Special Educators. And we—

John Torrens

And what state did he go to school in? Just from my own—

Lori Rogers

New Hampshire.

John Torrens

Oh, New Hampshire. Okay.

Lori Rogers

Yeah. Yeah. So we raised money and we had the teachers, the speech and language pathologist, the OTs, the PTs. the paras would request products, services, to go to an event, whatever they needed. One of the biggest things back then was like Velcro to make their board maker things. Remember? Yeah, I remember. Oh, you do? Okay. So, um, and we would just go buy it and deliver it to the school. And that's— it was a PTO for special needs classrooms in southern New Hampshire, and it was great. Then he transitioned out of, um, high school. He went into the, um, the adult world. And Neil connected with the woman who was president of Nashua Community College.

John Torrens

Neil is your husband?

Lori Rogers

Yes.

John Torrens

Yeah. Okay.

Lori Rogers

Yeah. And also one of the, um, Health and Human Services agencies here. And they donated a classroom for special needs adults in the college. And it was the first of its kind. And that was back in Oh my gosh, that was 10 years ago. In, um, so the kids can go in there if they wanted to attend a course, they could, or they do their own work, but it makes them feel like they're part of something, like they're part of a school and doing cool things. And now, 2 years ago, no, Craig's there, uh, 3 years ago, we discovered this program called Spelling to Communicate.

John Torrens

Hmm.

Lori Rogers

And I'm doing a lot of advocating about that and teaching people about it and spreading the word about it. So Craig, Uses a board about this big. It's a laminated board with the alphabet on it. And he uses his finger and he touches the words, touches the letters to spell words to communicate to us. And now we realize how smart he is.

John Torrens

Mm-hmm.

Lori Rogers

He knows all his family, everyone's names, where everyone lives, but he never— he's not able to speak it, but it's in here. So because his mouth, it can't listen to his motor cortex. So his motor cortex is telling his mouth what to do, but his, he has apraxia, so you cannot.

John Torrens

Yeah.

Lori Rogers

And this method of spelling to communicate helps him have robust conversation. He's told me all of his goals and objectives of what he wants to accomplish. He's very spiritual. I said, you know, I asked him one day how he knew so much about love, and he spelled out, I learned it from Jesus Christ.

John Torrens

Wow.

Lori Rogers

Very tapped in spiritually.

John Torrens

Yeah, yeah.

Lori Rogers

He never went in a regular ed class, math, anything, and he knows algebra. He know— he knows a lot, and it's just a beautiful It's beautiful. Yeah, we love it.

John Torrens

Yeah. Wow. Thanks for sharing that. Sure. Appreciate it. Yeah. So if people are interested in learning more about you and your work and what you do, where can they find you?

Lori Rogers

PositiveActivity.net. And I'm also on— I'm on Instagram, Lori A. Rogers Positive Activity. But on our website is all of our links to our, you know, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. And there's also a little tab there called Free Downloads, and you can download what I described as some of the activities that I do. There's a download there listing them and why I do them and how they can help you. There's a couple of— there's a toolkit there, a couple other little cool downloads to get you, um, get someone interested in and learn about it. Yeah. In case you didn't write it all down.

John Torrens

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today, Lori. I really appreciate it.

Lori Rogers

I loved it. Thanks, John.

John Torrens

Thank you so much for listening to the Total Entrepreneur Mind Body Spirit Podcast. If you liked what you heard or heard something interesting today, please give us a like, share a comment, or better yet, subscribe to the podcast. Thank you.

More from Lori Rogers

About This Episode

Success in business often starts with what’s happening between your ears. In this conversation, Lori Rogers shares how mindset work transformed her entrepreneurial journey and inspired her to create the Positive Activity framework. Drawing from personal challenges and the wisdom of leading thinkers, Lori reveals how small, consistent habits like daily affirmations can build resilience, boost self-awareness, and shift how you show up in life and business. She also opens up about her passion for special needs advocacy and the joy she finds in teaching others to communicate, lead, and live more positively. Whether you're navigating growth, burnout, or change, this episode will remind you that happiness is not only a practice, but a powerful business tool.

This episode is perfect for founders, leaders, and purpose-driven professionals ready to lead with intention and optimism. Visit www.positiveactivity.net to learn more.

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About the Host

Dr. John M. Torrens

5× Inc. 5000 entrepreneur, Professor at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management, author of Lightning in a Bottle, and TEDx speaker on ADHD as an entrepreneur's superpower.

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