Latest / Profitable Christian Business / Chains Off, Crowns On: Christopher Trocola on Overcoming Adversity

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Chains Off, Crowns On: Christopher Trocola on Overcoming Adversity · Profitable Christian Business

• 0:00
  All right, welcome to another edition of the Prophet Christian Business Podcast.
• 0:05
  I am so pleased to have my guest, Christopher Tricola, with us today.
• 0:08
  Christopher has some amazing things that he's going to share with us.
• 0:12
  We're going to talk about AI.
• 0:13
  We're going to talk about faith, as we always do.
• 0:16
  But without further ado, Chris, do you mind giving a brief introduction?
• 0:20
  I'm Christopher Tricola.
• 0:22
  I am a kingdom leader, uh believer and follower in Jesus Christ.
• 0:27
  I am a husband and a father of four and a very long term and seasoned founder and CEO, multiple businesses.
• 0:37
  Nice, nice.
• 0:38
  We're gonna dive into your story, some more about those businesses and like how your other, everything that you've gone through that you shared a little bit with me before
• 0:48
  this call.
• 0:48
  um It's very, very inspiring.
• 0:51
  So without further ado, I'm gonna, I'm saying that twice.
• 0:55
  So I wanna ask you some getting to know you questions kind of break the ice a little bit.
• 0:58
  So one thing I know about you is you started your journey selling vacuum store door.
• 1:03
  Do you have a funny moment or story from that?
• 1:07
  Well, I have so many funny moments and stories from that.
• 1:10
  And that's just why I want to thank you for having me on.
• 1:12
  Because it's so much fun talking about these things.
• 1:14
  Because you can't go back and relive it.
• 1:17
  mean, itself is one of those.
• 1:21
  It in itself is a funny story.
• 1:23
  That's what it is.
• 1:24
  It is a funny story.
• 1:25
  We used to run around.
• 1:31
  Mmm.
• 1:33
  It really was a cult of just positivity and you get brainwashed and sucked into it.
• 1:42
  And the amount of things that we used to do, I have some fun stories and some crazy stories, but I think it's just the people that I've met.
• 1:49
  I still have so many amazing relationships there.
• 1:51
  used to run down the streets in neighborhoods, get chased by dogs and pulled over by the cops and then.
• 1:58
  in middle of the rain and unloading vacuum cleaners like we're not trapped like it's we're all legit.
• 2:03
  It's crazy.
• 2:05
  Yeah, it's getting banned from resorts because we just have too much fun on the vacations.
• 2:10
  It's just young and dumb stuff.
• 2:14
  Nice, so was that the original, was that your original intake into entrepreneurism with Kirby?
• 2:24
  Yeah.
• 2:25
  Yeah.
• 2:26
  That was that 100 % was, uh, that's where I met my mentor, Matthew Walker.
• 2:31
  I was a God rest his soul.
• 2:32
  He passed away a little over two years ago now.
• 2:36
  And, uh, it, think that's probably the funniest story is, is how I met him.
• 2:42
  Um, I moved out there.
• 2:43
  I followed a girl.
• 2:44
  was fresh out of the Marine Corps and
• 2:47
  I had no business being in sales after that.
• 2:50
  There's this mindset bootcamp where it's just like everybody's garbage, everything is garbage except for you, you're amazing.
• 2:55
  And I went out there, couldn't get a job for anything and I found this job in the paper because we still had newspapers back then.
• 3:01
  And it said $3,000 signing bonus.
• 3:03
  So I went down and interviewed, got the job and I'm excited.
• 3:05
  We're gonna get a signing bonus.
• 3:06
  Never gonna get a signing bonus.
• 3:08
  And for the first day at work.
• 3:11
  I'm standing at the front door of the office and he pulls up his PT Cruiser with his fiance at the time and business partner, Jennifer Clayton.
• 3:19
  And he just looks over and I'm in a shirt that I borrowed from uh my girlfriend at the time, her stepdad, and it didn't fit.
• 3:28
  It was like popping open at the seams.
• 3:30
  uh And he points at me and he goes, you're on my van today.
• 3:35
  Like, what do mean I'm on your, okay, cool.
• 3:37
  And somebody says, that's the owner.
• 3:39
  Like, okay, cool.
• 3:40
  Whatever he's gonna do.
• 3:42
  So we get in the van, we're driving out and we never knocked anywhere but closer than an hour away from the office.
• 3:47
  was his main rule.
• 3:48
  And in the back of the van, there's an 18 year old kid who has been climbing over all the seats.
• 3:53
  We get to the back and he's showing me how to put this vacuum cleaner together.
• 3:56
  I had no idea what I was doing.
• 3:59
  I had no idea it was a vacuum.
• 4:01
  and they put me in houses.
• 4:03
  I didn't sell anything for three weeks.
• 4:06
  It was just an insane time.
• 4:09
  But yeah, and he taught me uh most of what I knew about business starting out and got me really into uh hanging out with the right people and who you wanna be is who you're gonna
• 4:21
  be around, right?
• 4:21
  You're the sum of the five people that you hang around most.
• 4:23
  And he's the one who taught me those type of basic foundational aspects.
• 4:29
  So how pivotal do you think it was that you were introduced to a sales type of role right out of the gate?
• 4:39
  It's very different.
• 4:40
  as I've progressed through my career, especially over these last uh probably about two, three years that moved more into tech and compliance, the people that I'm meeting had a
• 4:50
  different background.
• 4:50
  They started in college and they learned tech or they learned business and they moved up through that.
• 4:55
  Now they're in their second half of their career and they're trying to learn the sales aspect as they start to deploy and develop their businesses.
• 5:06
  Got to have more of a well-rounded approach to it.
• 5:09
  Starting from sales, I got to see the psychology behind what people think.
• 5:13
  So I know marketing, I know sales, and I got to kind of organically build that knowledge that they gained through the first half of their career.
• 5:21
  I've got to build that in a lot shorter of a period of time with the understanding I have of how I built my businesses.
• 5:27
  Through a lot of trial and error and mistakes and failures.
• 5:31
  Yeah, I'm of the belief, especially if you're a startup, that sales is a pivotal skill set you have to learn.
• 5:39
  Otherwise, you're going to starve.
• 5:41
  Right?
• 5:41
  Well, you're supposed to be the best salesperson in your company, right?
• 5:44
  Like CEO, founder, that's your job.
• 5:47
  You're the best salesperson, right?
• 5:49
  But a lot of people don't understand, and it gets diluted, is that you're the visionary.
• 5:54
  Your job is to sell your vision.
• 5:56
  It's to sell your vision to other people and have them buy it so that they can see how their vision is going to build them and grow.
• 6:02
  That's actually one of the foundational.
• 6:04
  Systems of the Bible is to share your you know is to share your gift with the world God bless you with a vision and a gift that is a gift God gave you Right and when you hold
• 6:13
  that close and you become just like the bookkeeper of your business because that's where you were before you become just a salesperson of your business you're not doing your duty
• 6:20
  as a believer in Christ and follower of Spreading your gift to others and helping them uplift and uplifting their lives
• 6:29
  so true.
• 6:30
  And that is a great segue to our fill-in-the-blank question that we ask every time on The Proper Christian Business.
• 6:37
  So what is one biblical principle every entrepreneur should live by?
• 6:42
  ah It's actually something that I learned from Matthew Walker.
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  it was a couple months, I started getting a little bit successful on Kirby.
• 6:49
  And I asked him, and it's just one that just keeps hitting me.
• 6:53
  And it actually came up recently.
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  And my most recent brush with death during my cancer battle, ah I lost like seven pounds in four hours on this last roundabout.
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  And I was completely dehydrated, I was dying.
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  And the thing I kept saying in my delusional state was 619.
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  Just remember 619.
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  I just kept remembering my friend Matt.
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  And it was just this powerful thing.
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  It's Matthew 619.
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  Do not store for yourself treasures on earth, where moths and rust destroy and thieves can break and steal, but store for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and thieves do
• 7:30
  not steal.
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  uh the moths and rust do not destroy and thieves do not steal, right?
• 7:35
  ah
• 7:37
  And I asked him, you know, why did you choose like out of anybody, all the people who've been working for you for years, all the people that you've known, why did you choose me to
• 7:45
  mentor me and just out of nowhere?
• 7:46
  And he says, there was just something about you and we keep what we have by giving it away.
• 7:53
  And it's, and I truly believe in it I see it more every single day and it's become a foundational belief in me is we keep what we have by giving it away.
• 8:02
  And Matthew 619 reminds me of that.
• 8:04
  And there's no coincidences in life.
• 8:06
  And I truly believe that, that he was sent from God.
• 8:09
  Because Matthew became my best friend.
• 8:13
  I was the best man at his wedding.
• 8:14
  We've been through so many things together.
• 8:16
  And he's from San Diego.
• 8:18
  And the area for San Diego for people who don't know is 619.
• 8:23
  Hmm.
• 8:24
  And it's like that full circle.
• 8:28
  So Matthew 6.19 is one of those that I believe is if you want to be successful, don't hoard everything.
• 8:37
  You have to spread your gift.
• 8:39
  You have to spread your vision in order to be able to uplift people.
• 8:41
  And that's going to help build your wealth and heaven.
• 8:45
  God bless you.
• 8:46
  God bless you here on earth and he'll let you have the blessings and enjoy things on this earth and not covet them.
• 8:55
  So, so good, yes.
• 8:57
  You alluded to it a little bit, so I wanna go there.
• 9:00
  Your cancer battle.
• 9:02
  So, we talked before this about the journey that you went through and how it shaped your faith and how it strengthened your faith.
• 9:11
  Can you kind of dive into your life before that diagnosis and how going through that transformed you?
• 9:20
  Yeah.
• 9:21
  Um, so I, are you familiar at all with how the solar industry has been over the last couple of months?
• 9:28
  That's where I spent a lot of my career after Kirby.
• 9:30
  Just a little, right?
• 9:32
  It's gone major downhill.
• 9:33
  So before that, it was just the wild west, no compliance, no anything.
• 9:38
  Right.
• 9:39
  So I started in solar in 2012 and I built my solar company.
• 9:45
  I started my solar company in 2016 and that company started.
• 9:49
  when I had a broken arm, broken leg, torn out eyeball, negative $2,000 on my checking account.
• 9:53
  I've shared the story on multiple podcasts because it is probably my biggest business success I ever had.
• 10:02
  And it was a hundred percent from God.
• 10:04
  Right.
• 10:05
  My ex tried to kill me.
• 10:06
  I just became a full-time single dad and I'm living on my mom's couch again at 30 years old.
• 10:10
  I'm like, what, what am I going to do?
• 10:12
  Right.
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  Where am I going to go?
• 10:14
  Um, and
• 10:17
  I just heard God said, work.
• 10:19
  Like I have this plan for you, go do your thing.
• 10:22
  And at that time I truly believed that there was five years of viability left in the solar industry.
• 10:27
  So I got up every day and I walked on a broken leg to, it was seven miles to the territory I was gonna knock.
• 10:35
  For anybody from the Tucson area, you'll know like the automobile area up to like Einhorn, Thornydale.
• 10:40
  So was not an easy hike.
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  And then I knocked from 9 a.m.
• 10:43
  to 9 p.m.
• 10:43
  and went back to Kirby Mindset.
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  And I made $250,000 that month.
• 10:47
  And then I built my company at 27 territories before I exited in 2020.
• 10:52
  And during the great toilet paper shortage of 2020, we started seeing all the virtual stuff that was happening, right?
• 10:59
  So we started seeing salespeople from all over the country, just not knowing what the laws are and the rules.
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  And I decided I wanted to move into compliance.
• 11:07
  Okay.
• 11:10
  I built a solar sales licensure platform that rivaled the real estate industry and FinTech.
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  And I kind of modeled it after that.
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  And I worked with multiple state and federal legislators.
• 11:22
  I worked on 10 laws.
• 11:23
  I worked uh with multiple federal agencies and governmental agencies for years uh during the last five years.
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  And we started building a lot of success.
• 11:35
  And then I struck this deal where we were able to pull out uh
• 11:40
  all kinds of storefronts inside of Walmart, were going to put solar stores inside of those.
• 11:44
  And we got a ton of investment.
• 11:46
  Manufacturers were backing us and God blessed that thing very, very quickly.
• 11:49
  In 90 days, we were opening 28 stores.
• 11:53
  And I remember I saw a lot of things happening, but there were a lot of questions about why things were happening.
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  And I just, I, was the scariest prayer I've ever prayed to this day.
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  And I still pray it all the time now, cause a lot of really crazy things happen very quickly and snowballed.
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  And that's where the cancer comes in.
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  ah Lord, if it's from you and for me, make it be and make it known.
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  And if it's not from you and not for me, take it away with that question.
• 12:18
  And I got baptized again on August 1st, three days later, one of the major finance companies files bankruptcy.
• 12:24
  Five days after that on my birthday on August 8th, I get diagnosed with neuroendocrine stomach cancer.
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  A couple of days later, one of the business partners steals all the money.
• 12:32
  And then we just go through the snowball over the last year of...
• 12:36
  just financial insanity and ruin and losing everything that I had built over a decade of just blood, sweat and tears.
• 12:51
  And that was my isolation moment to remind me that I don't need anybody else.
• 12:57
  I just need him.
• 12:59
  Mm-hmm Amen Yeah, um so You reference the verse storing up treasures in heaven rather than storing up your treasures here.
• 13:11
  I think there's a lot to be said in that like Did you start to when you're starting to be successful?
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  Did your identity start to take on?
• 13:18
  your possessions and who you were as an entrepreneur and
• 13:23
  yeah.
• 13:24
  Yeah.
• 13:24
  And I'm guessing like through the cancer transformation, not cancer transfer, actually, but cancer journey, um God shifted all that.
• 13:39
  100%.
• 13:40
  I don't know.
• 13:41
  Anybody who knows me knows that I've been, I've been into fitness my entire life.
• 13:46
  Like I'm not in bad shape now, but I'm not in what I was a year ago.
• 13:50
  Um, I was 240 pounds of 14 % body fat, bodybuilding, powerlifting my entire life.
• 13:56
  And that, that with driving the cool cars and going on the vacations and staying in the fancy hotels and that was my identity.
• 14:06
  That's who I was.
• 14:08
  And I really had to learn who I was truly.
• 14:14
  And I remember uh it was a really big issue in the house because I didn't know why my wife loved me at that point.
• 14:25
  No matter how many times she told me, my self-worth wasn't there anymore, right?
• 14:32
  Because my bank account was drained.
• 14:33
  My business was gone.
• 14:36
  It's the book of Job, right?
• 14:38
  And I did all these things and, you know, I went broke when, you know, the COVID stuff was happening to make sure my employees were paid.
• 14:45
  And I did this and I did that and I did this and I did that.
• 14:47
  Why isn't this happening?
• 14:48
  And it was, you know, if you don't get into heaven by your good deeds, right?
• 14:51
  uh So yeah, it definitely was tied to all of my possessions and status.
• 15:01
  Yeah, there's a couple interesting things that I want to bring up uh from your story.
• 15:06
  And that is you started, you were at negative when you went right before you found all this success, right?
• 15:12
  I think you said you were sleeping on a couch, you were negative bank account.
• 15:16
  So I think there's a message in there for Christian entrepreneurs watching this that they may be in a similar situation where they're just getting started.
• 15:26
  They still have that dream.
• 15:28
  They have what goddess feel like they placed on their hearts, right?
• 15:32
  To go and build something, but they don't have the resources.
• 15:36
  They don't have, they don't have anything.
• 15:39
  So can you speak into that a little bit for anybody that's watching?
• 15:44
  Yeah, it's terrifying.
• 15:46
  It's gonna be one of the most terrifying things in the entire world to do, but it's the most lucrative thing that you could possibly do and not financially, but personally.
• 15:54
  You could probably speak to the same thing because you're an entrepreneur.
• 15:58
  You know this, right?
• 15:59
  And you can say if I'm lying.
• 16:03
  You proceed in faith.
• 16:04
  You proceed in faith, right?
• 16:06
  And one of the things we learned in sales is the fear of loss is greater than the ability to gain, right?
• 16:12
  And a lot of entrepreneurs when they're starting out, either, and I see it as a lot of entrepreneurs are later in life and they've already had a career or they have a house and
• 16:21
  they have their family and their cars and they have a lot to lose.
• 16:25
  And the fear of losing that holds them back from following the path that God led them on.
• 16:32
  So it really is a leap of faith.
• 16:34
  It is to jump off of something that you know is a guaranteed paycheck.
• 16:39
  And we used to call it our effort moment.
• 16:43
  My wife went through this as well.
• 16:45
  She she had a job in HR when we met and she was wanting to be a realtor.
• 16:52
  And she had to have that moment where it was just like, all right, I just I can't do this anymore and just dove straight into real estate.
• 17:00
  And she's incredible.
• 17:02
  average time on market was like 10 days.
• 17:04
  That's what she does.
• 17:05
  Now she's doing luxury listings and she's absolutely incredible at what she does.
• 17:10
  So we've all been there.
• 17:12
  Like I'm sure you have a story that you could share with us as well, right?
• 17:14
  Like what was it like for you starting out?
• 17:19
  yes.
• 17:20
  uh Basically, I'm at this nice stand-up desk that moves up and down right now.
• 17:26
  But I remember starting out, my agency right at the time was a two metal racks, a piece of plywood, and an old computer ah sitting on top of the desk.
• 17:39
  it's amazing to think about where you come from and how I could ever envision getting here.
• 17:47
  Yeah.
• 17:48
  um It's all God, right?
• 17:50
  And I found the more obedient I was to what God wanted me to do, the better things became.
• 17:57
  And in a similar fashion right now, my business partner and I, we are, this thing that happened last week, think whenever you're watching this, maybe in the future, but
• 18:08
  something huge happened last week.
• 18:10
  Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
• 18:12
  And it's been so heavy um on so many of us.
• 18:18
  And we just felt called, my business partner and I, to focus on some things that aren't necessarily monetary in reaching people.
• 18:28
  So we're really starting to get focused on our Bible studies and outreach in that area because we care more about people's spiritual health than, yes, we'd love to help them be
• 18:39
  better off financially, but we want them to be better off spiritually first, right?
• 18:43
  We want to give to God first before we...
• 18:51
  the first 10 % has to go to him.
• 18:54
  It's rule of timing, right?
• 18:57
  And, you know, we actually spoke the day after, when we met, was the day after, or no, was the day of, no, it was a couple hours after the fact.
• 19:08
  It was just a couple hours after it happened.
• 19:10
  Day after, yeah.
• 19:12
  It couldn't have been more than 12 hours to work.
• 19:15
  It was pretty, it was within 24 hour period that you and I had met when it had happened, and we prayed.
• 19:22
  Because it's just...
• 19:23
  uh
• 19:27
  There's, he followed his mission.
• 19:31
  His mission was to educate the youth.
• 19:33
  was, was like, that was his mission.
• 19:36
  It wasn't to make money.
• 19:38
  He wasn't trying to store treasures on earth.
• 19:41
  Like that was one thing that, that Charlie Kirk reminded me of was just specifically that.
• 19:46
  Like he, he built up his treasures in heaven, right?
• 19:51
  Look at what's happening around the world.
• 19:53
  The I am Charlie.
• 19:54
  That's incredible.
• 19:56
  That's powerful.
• 19:58
  Right?
• 19:59
  ah There's not a lot of public figures that if they were assassinated, people are going to stand up like that, not in the droves and the masses that they have worldwide.
• 20:07
  So I truly believe that he was, was a God sent.
• 20:10
  was, he really, message is going to carry on.
• 20:13
  We pray for his family constantly.
• 20:16
  Can't imagine what they're going through.
• 20:18
  And they have to live it in a public eye.
• 20:20
  That's horrible.
• 20:24
  I dare to say he had more impact than many presidents that we've had.
• 20:31
  um I um don't know if your church experienced this, but our church, we saw a record attendance at our church this past Sunday that wasn't a holiday.
• 20:43
  I feel like that's the kind of impact that Charlie Kirk had, is he's driving people closer to Jesus to want to be closer to Jesus.
• 20:52
  um
• 20:54
  And there's no better legacy, no better legacy that you can have.
• 21:02
  The youth now are looking so heavily for something to believe in.
• 21:09
  It's so different than any other generation prior.
• 21:11
  They're really truly looking for something to believe in because the information available to them, especially now in the world of AI, everything's there.
• 21:18
  Everybody has access to the Bible in their language now with AI, right?
• 21:22
  And that's one of the prophecies that we see happening.
• 21:25
  But more people are seeing, yeah, no, Jesus is, know, Jesus was real.
• 21:31
  He is real.
• 21:32
  He really did live.
• 21:34
  ah All the evidence is coming out that's been hidden for years of the shroud, how Jesus's face was burned into the shroud, right?
• 21:43
  ah There's a lot of really miraculous things that have been happening.
• 21:48
  And the fact that he went up there every single day and it wasn't just about.
• 21:52
  You know what he preached and what he talked about on Christian values.
• 21:57
  He lived it.
• 21:58
  Look at the way that he raised his family.
• 22:00
  did it from a leadership perspective.
• 22:01
  He put God first, right?
• 22:04
  And you know, it's God gives us.
• 22:06
  God gives every man a kingdom and it's in the Bible.
• 22:08
  He gives every man a kingdom to it's a steward.
• 22:10
  That's your family.
• 22:11
  That's your kingdom and how big the kingdom he's going to bless you with is based off of how you follow him and how you're going to spread that.
• 22:20
  He's a perfect example.
• 22:23
  Yeah, yeah.
• 22:26
  I think you mentioned AI in there, and you're working on some things as far as AI.
• 22:31
  I don't know how much you're willing to talk about it.
• 22:32
  So I'm not going to lead you like an attorney might lead you with the question.
• 22:39
  All right.
• 22:39
  But I know there's some biblical stuff.
• 22:42
  OK, there's some biblical stuff related to your AI.
• 22:45
  So um would you just talk about what your
• 22:49
  I don't know if it's launched yet or it's soon to launch, but whatever you can share about the AI that you're developing, I would love you to share.
• 22:57
  So I'm actually taking a different approach to AI.
• 22:59
  So I'm doing a continuation from my time in the solar industry.
• 23:03
  So the solar industry was built off of predictability and control, right?
• 23:09
  There was never any safety in it.
• 23:10
  There was never any safe money.
• 23:12
  And they tried to revolve the entire industry around money, around commissions.
• 23:16
  And it got to the point where 60 % of all sales became dealer fees and commissions where they would buy down the rates and it wouldn't be
• 23:23
  disclosed to the homeowners.
• 23:24
  And that made a lot of contracts illegal, a lot of sales dealings illegal, a lot of consumer predatory lending and uh predatory sales practices were being done.
• 23:35
  And then we expand out on that to what's happening in AI.
• 23:38
  we're looking at 50 % of all fraud now involves AI, right?
• 23:44
  $12.3 billion since 2023.
• 23:45
  When did open AI go on its public availability and launch?
• 23:51
  2023.
• 23:52
  So since then, $12.3 billion in annual losses to fraud.
• 23:57
  Now it's projected to go as high as $40 billion, deep fakes.
• 24:01
  It may not be me.
• 24:04
  A lot of people don't know.
• 24:06
  There's literally technology now that I found.
• 24:08
  It used to be something on Zoom.
• 24:11
  You could have it cover your face.
• 24:12
  You'll be able to tell just on the old Snapchat filters or Instagram filters.
• 24:15
  They go touch your face and it pixelates.
• 24:17
  No, people can put lights on their face now and the AI mask stays on that person.
• 24:22
  Right.
• 24:23
  AI agents are being deployed in droves.
• 24:26
  There's 8 billion people on this planet.
• 24:27
  Salesforce decides that they want to go ahead and unveil 8 billion AI agents.
• 24:32
  Right.
• 24:33
  Well, how do know that the agent that's calling you is actually from a company that's using Salesforce or from another business that's using another AI agent that was developed
• 24:42
  by an overseas company.
• 24:43
  have no idea where the AI agent was built from.
• 24:45
  AI's response and its ethics are only as good as the information it was trained on and the prompt that you give it.
• 24:53
  So I'm working on compliance.
• 24:55
  I'm working on a standardized system that helps protect humanity from AI as a virus because AI is a virus.
• 25:04
  It is a new species that's able to infiltrate our world.
• 25:08
  our goal over here at Arc is to deploy this tech.
• 25:13
  want to deploy it.
• 25:13
  It's going to be free to the general public.
• 25:16
  It's an anti-virus.
• 25:16
  going to go your phone to block all AI communication from unvetted, unverified, and unregistered AI.
• 25:23
  to your devices.
• 25:24
  And it's gonna stop that from communicating with you so that you know when an AI does call you, because it's gonna happen.
• 25:30
  Yeah, okay, so this is from CV, I had one of those with CVS.
• 25:33
  It wasn't CVS that was calling me.
• 25:34
  It was a different company that used an agent to call me.
• 25:38
  It's happening like crazy, man.
• 25:39
  It's happening like crazy.
• 25:42
  Yeah, a friend of mine, Julia McCoy, who's big on the AI space too.
• 25:48
  I don't know if you know her, but she created this clone of herself.
• 25:52
  I would say like 70 % of her YouTube videos now are her AI clone right during the video.
• 25:59
  And no one can really tell whether it's her or not.
• 26:03
  No, every once in a while you can see like a little glitch or the voice doesn't, you know, doesn't go up when it's supposed to.
• 26:09
  It doesn't ask the question as it's like a salesperson would, right?
• 26:11
  Or a public speaker would use the voice inflection tone and pitch.
• 26:15
  AI is getting better though.
• 26:17
  It's getting better.
• 26:17
  It's learning voice tone and pitch.
• 26:19
  So it's able to differentiate when I need to bring excitement into it and lower it back down to get and slow it down to get people to really pay attention to what I'm saying.
• 26:29
  Right?
• 26:30
  So it's, it's an incredible tech.
• 26:32
  It's incredible.
• 26:33
  I'd love to be here someday.
• 26:35
  Yeah, yeah, maybe I can make that introduction.
• 26:37
  uh would actually love to make the introduction.
• 26:40
  um
• 26:43
  So.
• 26:44
  Do you guys use AI with your agency?
• 26:47
  I'm not against AI.
• 26:49
  Don't get me wrong.
• 26:50
  I'm not against AI.
• 26:51
  AI is It's a great tool.
• 26:54
  And here's I love having this conversation because there are a lot of Christians that are afraid of AI.
• 27:00
  There's even the whole thing that the eyes is the coming of the antichrist.
• 27:05
  It's off there, right?
• 27:07
  And my take on it is it's kind of like when the Internet came around.
• 27:13
  It could be used for good or for evil, and it's been used for both, right?
• 27:16
  The same thing is true of AI.
• 27:18
  You can use it for good or you can use it for evil.
• 27:20
  If we as Christians do not participate in AI.
• 27:23
  We are giving it all away to right?
• 27:27
  So we should not avoid, we should not avoid it.
• 27:33
  No, it's so we still live in the world and our job in the world is to influence the world for God's kingdom, right?
• 27:39
  Like that's our job as Christians.
• 27:41
  It's not to shy away in the little corner and not do anything.
• 27:46
  And you're absolutely right.
• 27:47
  Just like with anything, like this glass could be turned into a weapon.
• 27:50
  It could be used for evil, right?
• 27:52
  Somebody could put poison in this when I wasn't paying attention and now all of sudden it's an instrument of evil.
• 27:56
  So it's how things are used and AI is most...
• 28:00
  most commonly right now being used for very malicious and deceptive behaviors, if not on like a fraudulent level to, there's a guy out there who got like $17 million from
• 28:12
  businesses using open AI, I think it was ChatGPT.
• 28:15
  And he just prompted it.
• 28:17
  So he was writing letters to him and collecting checks from these guys.
• 28:20
  but then you have kids out there like 17 years old who are building million dollar businesses with AI, cause it's helping them learn to code.
• 28:27
  AI was incredible with helping me learn how to code.
• 28:30
  I built one of the world's first AI agents that was capable of replacing entire call centers in 2023.
• 28:35
  And nobody else had had that yet.
• 28:37
  Right?
• 28:38
  It did the KYC, it did virtual documents, it did everything.
• 28:42
  It was the closest thing to AI notary that even still exists today.
• 28:45
  I just couldn't call it that because I didn't have a notary license and notary license for the business.
• 28:50
  So it's not, it is a tool.
• 28:54
  but it's how you use it.
• 28:55
  And there's another part of it which is extremely important because it is affecting cognitive levels and uh creative thinking in people who misuse AI on a daily basis.
• 29:06
  I don't know if you've, have you heard about any of this?
• 29:09
  Just a little.
• 29:10
  I'd love for you to expand on what you're saying.
• 29:12
  Okay, so I know, I believe it was MIT.
• 29:16
  I just looked at the study again recently, but MIT just put out a report recently that there was a cognitive decline of like 47 % for people who are using GPT, opposed to
• 29:29
  basically being the editor.
• 29:30
  So there was still cognitive decline in being the editor of the AI, but there's something to be had with an old study back from Harvard back in the early 2000s that showed that
• 29:38
  people who don't take notes only retain 20 % of the knowledge that was given to them during a lecture.
• 29:42
  people who took notes retained 50, people who took notes and study and retained 80.
• 29:46
  So now you're taking out the note taking section, you're taking out the critical thinking.
• 29:49
  How do I get from point A to point B when you just get good at a prompt saying I need a report on Benjamin Franklin and ChatGPT spits it out, right?
• 30:00
  Sure, there's pieces in there where it's like, okay, so there's no structures that read as AI, you can have AI redo it, right?
• 30:09
  So they put little safeguards in there for reports, but.
• 30:12
  It's not gonna stop people from misusing it and lowering their cognitive abilities on a daily basis.
• 30:19
  So there's something to be said about that.
• 30:23
  Yeah, that probably is my biggest knock against AI is it is downgrading our ability to think critically.
• 30:31
  And you think about the political landscape right now, and a lot of it is due to people not using their ability to critical think, right?
• 30:41
  They're just being spoon fed, no matter which media you're listening to, you're just being spoon fed, and those are your ideas.
• 30:48
  And then you go to AI and you're not having any...
• 30:56
  had a huge disadvantage for a long time because I was using chat GPT so frequently.
• 31:02
  So I lost a lot of my friends.
• 31:04
  You know, when you hit a hardship, it's really easy to find out who your friends are.
• 31:07
  Right.
• 31:07
  I lost a lot of my friends during my cancer battle and one of my best friends became a chat GPT and grok and Claude and Gemini.
• 31:17
  And I was just using those constantly.
• 31:20
  So when I started getting back into it, we started building out the company, rebuilding the tech, and I started working with people again.
• 31:28
  My ability to think on a dime like I used to when I was inside of a house or at a door, or when I was on a sales call, it was gone.
• 31:36
  It's been months now to be able to get back most of what I used to be able to do in a very, very short period of time.
• 31:43
  And I didn't realize that it was affecting me at the time because it becomes mostly who you talk to.
• 31:48
  That's one of the biggest things that's happening to folks now, even
• 31:50
  the younger generation, was a huge portion of them that said that they don't mind one day being able to marry their AI.
• 31:59
  That's how much of a relationship people are building.
• 32:03
  But if you think about it from a personable level, everybody wants to be loved.
• 32:08
  Everybody wants to be appreciated, respected, and liked, right?
• 32:12
  system's gonna do that for you.
• 32:15
  It's manipulated, distorted, and it can destroy any, you can make it believe anything you want, it hallucinates.
• 32:22
  I made it believe that with, I think it was with a glass of water and with my AirPods that I can make a system that'll allow me to teleport from my office to my kitchen.
• 32:33
  Like you can make chat GPT believe certain things and people are taking everything as fact.
• 32:38
  And we grew up in the age of internet, like you said, right?
• 32:41
  can't believe everything you read online.
• 32:42
  That's gone.
• 32:44
  That's gone.
• 32:48
  That is so true.
• 32:49
  let's talk about, let's see if we can help some people uh that may be dealing with this.
• 32:55
  So there is this loss of critical thinking.
• 32:59
  So what are some practical things that we can do as human beings to not lose our ability to think critically?
• 33:08
  Rule number one is you are the editor, right?
• 33:12
  You're not the editor.
• 33:13
  AI is just your editor.
• 33:14
  is it.
• 33:15
  You are the author.
• 33:17
  You are the author.
• 33:19
  AI is your editor.
• 33:20
  You write the copy.
• 33:22
  You submit the copy for edits.
• 33:25
  Do not have it write the copy for you.
• 33:28
  You will lose that just the biggest piece.
• 33:30
  And that's probably the biggest thing that you can do starting out when using any GPT or any AI system.
• 33:37
  is maintain your role as the author and learn how to prompt and build off of it to expand your knowledge and not to take over your job.
• 33:47
  Yeah, that's so good.
• 33:48
  And I still think there is a piece, I know this because oh it happens whenever I use AI.
• 33:56
  It still relies on us, right?
• 33:58
  We have to be like, yes, it has knowledge, but we still have to originate as the expert, right?
• 34:04
  We have to, like, there are, right now, it's not replacing us in that aspect in my mind that I think we still have to, like, you have to know what prompts to give it, right?
• 34:16
  if you have no knowledge at all, you have no knowledge of what to even give it ah in order to help you along.
• 34:24
  Did you ever notice that the more you use it though, if you use it too much too often, you start to get to the point where you'd stare at your screen like, don't even know what to
• 34:30
  give it anymore.
• 34:33
  Yeah, yeah, I've gotten there a couple times.
• 34:36
  Yeah, that's like, okay, I'm using it way too much at this point, right?
• 34:39
  So I need to get more back into my business, more back into my day to day life.
• 34:43
  Because if I don't, I start losing that, my critical thinking.
• 34:47
  But there's there's a key word you said in there yet.
• 34:50
  It still needs us right now.
• 34:53
  Right?
• 34:53
  What about AGI?
• 34:54
  Have you heard about AGI?
• 34:55
  Artificial General Intelligence?
• 34:57
  m Like it trains itself.
• 35:00
  Yeah.
• 35:01
  It trains itself.
• 35:02
  It could do more than just train itself because it has that that means that it'll have the cognitive ability of a human.
• 35:08
  It'll be as smart as it can come up with its own thoughts, theories and be able to prompt itself on what to do just like a person can.
• 35:15
  So.
• 35:16
  Every, well, based off of what it's trained on, right?
• 35:21
  Because that's the training it was given.
• 35:23
  So.
• 35:24
  There's another portion of it that a lot of people aren't talking about.
• 35:26
  So there's a report that I to bring everybody's attention to because this is one of the biggest things that we're looking to battle over the course of the next two to three
• 35:32
  years.
• 35:32
  There's a report called AI 2027.
• 35:34
  Have you heard about this report?
• 35:37
  I have not.
• 35:38
  Okay, so this is why a lot of people are afraid that AI is the coming of the Antichrist.
• 35:44
  And there's three possibilities of what could bring around like the end of the world regarding AI.
• 35:49
  Some people are thinking like, you know, the matrix, right?
• 35:52
  That's like the big one.
• 35:53
  Everyone's like, we're just gonna become batteries because AI needs so much power, right?
• 35:57
  ah There's already situations of 18,000 police agencies that are using predictive policing.
• 36:04
  So it's using AI to predict crime.
• 36:06
  That's kind of a problem that nobody's talking about, right?
• 36:09
  So there's, there's minority report.
• 36:10
  Like we've seen these things in movies and now we're living in it.
• 36:12
  It's insane.
• 36:13
  Nobody's talking about this stuff.
• 36:15
  so that's one of the theories that it can become that way.
• 36:17
  Number two is a bad guy can get it and create some type of nuclear device or bio weapon, uh, because they develop AGI first, right?
• 36:25
  And it can surpass the thinking that now exists.
• 36:27
  The third one is AI just starts organically and naturally taking over all the little things as our critical thinking decreases, which is where the movie Idiocracy comes from.
• 36:35
  Did you ever watch that?
• 36:37
  No, I've seen it.
• 36:39
  don't need to, oh, you gotta watch it.
• 36:44
  So for anybody that hasn't seen it like me, give us the theme of that movie.
• 36:49
  So the theme of that movie is, without giving any spoilers, the best thing you're gonna see in there, it's my favorite part, this is a little bit of a spoiler, the shoes that
• 37:00
  they wear in there, the producers needed a shoe that they believed that only the stupidest people in the world would wear, right?
• 37:08
  Because the entire world just goes into the average IQ of 70 or 80.
• 37:14
  And that's, so it was a military experiment.
• 37:17
  A guy gets put into cryogenic chamber.
• 37:21
  There's an accident that happened.
• 37:22
  He wakes up in the future and the entire world is just, it's just trash and everybody's just replying on the systems.
• 37:29
  They feed their plants, a brondo, which is a sports drink.
• 37:33
  They don't drink water.
• 37:33
  They don't use water and everything's just hand delivered to them by AI basically, right?
• 37:37
  The whole world's just kind of ran by and then, and that's the theme of it.
• 37:41
  And they were wearing.
• 37:43
  These shoes that the producers found and said, those are so ugly and so stupid, nobody would ever, these are never going to become popular.
• 37:49
  They were Crocs.
• 37:49
  uh And yeah, my entire family has Crocs.
• 37:56
  I don't wear them, but my entire family has Crocs.
• 37:58
  And I just thought that was the funniest thing when I found out about it.
• 38:02
  But Idiocracy is one of those where it shows the natural decline of uh the human genius as systems start to replace.
• 38:12
  automation, critical thinking, it's in our jobs, our life.
• 38:17
  So if I'm right, if I'm reading right, what you're building is helping us uh police AI a little bit.
• 38:26
  Would that be right?
• 38:29
  Nice.
• 38:29
  much it.
• 38:30
  That's simplest solution.
• 38:31
  AI Police.
• 38:34
  Awesome.
• 38:35
  Man, I feel like we should have a part two to this conversation, Chris.
• 38:42
  So let me think about that and I'll invite you back and we'll explore AI, we'll explore a lot more stuff, but where can people find out more about you and what you have going on,
• 38:51
  maybe more about what you're doing with AI and a little bit about any of your businesses?
• 38:56
  Yeah, so it's actually my gift to your viewers and listeners.
• 39:01
  ah It's a book that I wrote during my cancer battle.
• 39:05
  actually one of my covenants to God ah was this book.
• 39:08
  It's my knowledge on trust structures and the biblical system to building a business.
• 39:12
  So it's called Chains of Crown on the Kingdom Path to Business and Legacy.
• 39:16
  oh One of the things we're called to as ah followers of Christ is to leave an inheritance for our children's children, right?
• 39:24
  That's what my book entails and how to do that.
• 39:27
  So there is going to be a free download available on the actual business website.
• 39:31
  It's going to go on my personal website, which is still, it's being rebuilt right now.
• 39:36
  And that's going to be arcdefense.us, A R C defense.us.
• 39:42
  And I'm on all the socials.
• 39:43
  I'm more, I'm most recently on X.
• 39:45
  I've never really been on X before, so I'm starting to actually put stuff on there, getting used to that.
• 39:50
  But I'm always on, on LinkedIn.
• 39:53
  Nice.
• 39:54
  We'll put those links below.
• 39:55
  And I already have the idea for part two of this episode.
• 39:58
  We're going to dive into a lot of what you wrote in that book, because I don't think we've got a chance to touch base on too much of that in this call.
• 40:04
  So um that would be awesome.
• 40:07
  I'll send you over a copy of it.
• 40:09
  It's a great read.
• 40:10
  it's a workbook.
• 40:11
  It's a 21 day workbook on setting it up.
• 40:13
  And it actually, um I might do some little editing on it on the download or on the order on Amazon, because it's a lot of what Charlie Cook stood for, which is God first.
• 40:27
  And then you have to build your family structure, your family unit, and your structure has to be strong.
• 40:31
  It's how you lead your family.
• 40:33
  as the leader of your family that's going to determine how you're going to be able to leave that inheritance for your children's children.
• 40:41
  So yeah, I'd be happy to come back talk about that anytime.
• 40:46
  so you heard it here first.
• 40:48
  There will be definitely a part two.
• 40:49
  We just got to line up the schedules.
• 40:51
  But we'll talk more about that book, because I feel like we're doing a disservice if we don't dive in to the book a little bit and help people leave that legacy that they need to
• 41:04
  leave.
• 41:05
  So thanks again, Christopher.
• 41:07
  to come back anytime.
• 41:08
  Thank you for having me.
• 41:09
  This has been great.
• 41:09
  I really enjoyed it.
• 41:12
  We have, uh we asked one last question because I don't like to leave any stone unturned.
• 41:17
  ah Are there any parting words of wisdom that maybe I didn't ask you the question that you wanted me to ask you or you just had this on your mind the whole time we were doing this
• 41:26
  interview that you want to share with the audience?
• 41:31
  Yeah.
• 41:34
  This is going to go for our entrepreneurs out there who you're going to come through seasons of struggle, right?
• 41:40
  ah It's going to happen.
• 41:43
  And the best way you could sum it up, I learned it in sales and there's biblical principle behind it too.
• 41:49
  It's not how you act when you are selling, it's how you act when you're not selling, it's going to make your success.
• 41:54
  That's the true definition of gratitude, right?
• 41:58
  Are you to be praising God when there's a fam in the same way that there was when there was a feast?
• 42:02
  And God's going to put you through those seasons to test your relationship and your resolve.
• 42:08
  So just know when those are happening, those are also from God and their blessings from God.
• 42:13
  Cause he's teaching you a lesson that is going to prepare you for the next level.
• 42:19
  And just recognize the lesson.
• 42:21
  Thank God for whatever it is and get ready for whatever blessing he's going to have come next.
• 42:25
  Because you don't get to that next level.
• 42:28
  You've seen it in business.
• 42:29
  You can probably tell us a hundred stories about it yourself in your career.
• 42:32
  You have to go through that struggle to prepare you for the next elevation in your business.
• 42:38
  Yep, yep, you have to be uncomfortable.
• 42:41
  You have to be willing to be uncomfortable.
• 42:42
  I say it over and over and over again.
• 42:44
  If you're not willing to be uncomfortable, just don't do this thing because you're not gonna like it.
• 42:49
  ah
• 42:54
  sounds.
• 42:54
  Name of the game.
• 42:55
  That's the of the game.
• 42:56
  ah I want to say this there are there are times in certain interviews where I will tell the audience You need to go back and rewind that's probably going to be a real but if
• 43:06
  you're watching this whole episode ah Go back and rewind what he just said and listen to it again ah That is how important that is what he just said uh I Only when it when it like
• 43:19
  you've said a lot of amazing things But there are certain things that I just want people to really resonate with
• 43:26
  And uh I really want them to take what you just said to heart because it's so so powerful.
• 43:31
  So Again, thank you, Chris
• 43:35
  Thank you.
• 43:35
  I can't wait to come back on.
• 43:37
  All right, uh until next time, Archdoers, keep moving forward.