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121: Think Like the 1% & Make Quantum Leaps in Life w/ Chris Patterson · Harder Than Life

• 0:07
  I'm Kelly Siegel and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living. Today on the Harder Than Life podcast, I've commandeered someone's studio like I normally do, my good friend and brother from another mother.
• 0:31
  Someone who knows what it means to go big, make a difference and have a blast doing it. Chris Patterson, CEO and founder of Live Large Coaching and Interchanges has spent over 20 years helping companies grow by billions, yes billions, with a unique blend of mindset, mastery, and practical strategy. From NFL stars to top CEOs, Chris has coached them all. And today I'm at his studio to share
• 0:59
  What it takes to think like the top 1% and make those quantum leaps in life. Plus, now he's a good friend of mine as well as a brother from another mother. We might dig into some Windsor Club stories along the way. Welcome, my brother. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be on the Harder Than Life podcast. Buddy.
• 1:20
  I just want to take a minute and just think about like how life happens. I, you took a whim to go to Philadelphia and give a speak, speech, speaking engagement. I went to support a friend and now I've made a lifelong friend and I'm here in your beautiful studio meeting your beautiful friends, man. I already love you.
• 1:39
  Well, thank you, man. It's, uh, it was funny cause you and I had an impromptu dinner when we were in Philly and, uh, it took us about five minutes to figure out that we literally are cut from the same rug. Yeah. Uh, one of the, one of the funniest things is when we discovered that he grew up in Detroit, I grew up across the border in Windsor, Ontario, and man, all the stories started flying right from there. So yeah, the light bulb moment went on and, and you know, I,
• 2:07
  you guys have heard in the heart of the life podcast many times is there are no coincidences and there's a reason why we're together. And we you've already introduced me to a bunch of people. I've introduced you to a lot of people. This is the way life is supposed to be. So let's share some of your beautiful, beautiful knowledge with the heart of life listeners. We're going to easy golf ball first question. It's you've had over 20 years of success in business. What's one secret you found for sustaining growth and momentum?
• 2:32
  Well, super good question to start off the, I like to keep things super, super simple. And if I look back over the years of my achievements and my team's achievements, it's all about my team, right? One thing that we've done really, really well is be consistent. One of the simple ways to do that is what I call my top five.
• 2:55
  So my top five is basically what are five priorities that you can do tomorrow that are going to move the needle in business or in life? Now that could be getting in a workout. That could be making extra sales calls. That could be more networking. Whatever it is that you do, make sure it's a priority where if you do it today, it's going to have a payoff tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now. Now here's the wild thing about doing the top fives.
• 3:22
  and I have my team do this, right? So the day before I want to see top five, what are you going to get done the next day? If you do five priorities per day, that's going to turn into 25 priorities a week. Those 25 priorities a week are going to turn into a hundred priorities a month. And if those hundred priorities happen over a year, that's 1200 priorities.
• 3:47
  that you're getting accomplished. It is impossible for your life not to change if you're just doing five important things every day. Even if you ended up doing half of those, that's still 600 priorities a year that you're intentionally putting down on paper and accomplishing the next day. Is that metric or Imperial since you're from Canada?
• 4:10
  We're not going to get into the Dewey Decimal System and the metric system. I'm Americanized now. I've been here for almost 30 years. It brought me back to the days when we used to leave out of Bentleys or Don Cherry's, and I'd keep the Loonies and Toonies. It's the only place in the world that he had coins for dollars. Right. And I'd keep just enough so I could walk out and buy those hot dogs as the club closed. It made me think about that.
• 4:33
  How funny it is. So you did keep it simple. That is simple. I love to keep it simple. I mean, that's, I think things get too complex. We get so diluted in business if we're trying to do too much and do too many confusing things and it all sounds good. But the reality is we can only do so much each and every day. So keep it simple and keep it effective. Yeah. That's do more of what works. Um, is this, so we'll talk about the quantum leap mindset thinking it's, uh,
• 5:01
  Is it, is it take that further or how does that work? Yeah. So, um, I've got a program called quantum, quantum leap mindset and what it really is derived from is all the greats. So Napoleon Hill and Earl Nightingale, Bob Proctor, Zig Ziglar, and all of these greats, these, these thought leaders, true thought leaders. And, uh, we've combined all of their best wisdom into a program that I teach over a six month period.
• 5:28
  But what's impressive about it, and I have rights to brag on it because I didn't obviously create all of it, right? I pay my portion of it.
• 5:37
  But what's cool about it is we're actually teaching people how to think, act, and behave like the top 1%. There actually is a way to codify the way people think to get the results that they get. What you're doing is teaching people, hey, you've got to think differently. You've got to act differently. You've got to behave differently if you want to get to the next level.
• 5:59
  And we've just made a really succinct, oops, we just made a really succinct six month process where we take all the heavy lifting out of it for you. We go, just do these elements over six months. The next thing you know, you have a different mindset. And you just named the harder than life. That's it.
• 6:18
  And it really isn't... The next time we have to change it from harder life to easier life because it really isn't hard. The hardest thing is making the choice that you just don't want to live the way you're living and make that first change and then it becomes like a domino effect. You mentioned Zig Ziglar and Bob Proctor and the story of how...
• 6:36
  you became a follower of Zig Ziegler is outstanding. So you don't have to give the whole story, but how we kicked off the podcast was everything happens for a reason. Yeah. And we're here today, but tell the Zig Ziegler story and how you met him. It's crazy. I'll tell you the shortened version because it's, I could go on for an hour talking about Zig, but Zig actually personally mentored me in 1997. Every Sunday I was either at his church or his house or whatever,
• 7:03
  Uh, went to lunch, but, uh, the way that came to be is I remember my dad, when I was a complete mess, I mean, back in, back in the day, I'd screwed up my life. I like to tell people I was a self made man. Boy, what a mess I made of myself. I was jacked up young man. So at about 24 years old, um, I hit rock bottom, uh, massive depression, drinking drugs, you know, the, you know, the drill, but my dad called me one day and said, Hey, how would you like to go to a success seminar?
• 7:32
  I'd never been to one of these things, and I kind of didn't really want to go. I was like, oh, I'll go hang out with Dad. So I go to the success seminar, and this man comes out on stage, and he's marching back and forth. By the way, let me interrupt for just a second. Go ahead. I just remembered that this was in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Palace of Auburn Hills. At the Palace of Auburn Hills. So that's where I grew up. So this is why there are no coincidences. It's so wild that I'm sitting in your house and your studio doing this today. But it's...
• 7:59
  I probably was five feet away from you several times through our life. For sure. I just, I love it. It makes me feel hard for you still have the pictures of being there. Absolutely. So we ended up at the palace of Auburn Hills. It's a huge event center, as you know, way up in the nosebleed section. And all of a sudden this guy comes out and he's saying things I'd never heard before. He's got all this energy. And what really impressed me is how the crowd reacted to him.
• 8:27
  I'd never heard such a loud applause. I mean, it was electric in this place. And he was saying things like, you can have everything you want in life if you'll just help enough other people get what they want. He said, you don't have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great. And then he said something that really caught my attention because my mind was a mess. I was a depressed mess.
• 8:51
  And he said, you are where you are because of what's gone into your mind. You can change where you are. And more importantly, you can change who you are by changing what goes into your mind. Well, that was my first taste of personal development. That was my first insight to going, oh my gosh, is there a different way for me to think, act, and behave? Is there a path that I can go down where I'm actually going to make a difference, not only for myself, but other people?
• 9:18
  And that's when I got serious about my life because everything I'd done up until that point was a failure. I'd lost jobs. I'd lost the girl I thought I was going to marry. I lost my mind. So I was like, maybe I'll try a different approach. And that's when I bought a bunch of cassette tapes. I know I'm dating myself here. But I bought a bunch of cassette tapes. For you young people, you don't know this, but you had to put your baby finger into these things and wind them back up when they broke.
• 9:45
  So I listened to those cassette tapes hundreds of times, over and over and over. I was putting the right stuff into my mind, and all of a sudden I was becoming a different person. And that's why we do what we do today, is because we've been there, done that, and we want to improve.
• 10:01
  I don't even think I've told you this yet. So obviously I own an IT company and I was a salesman for years and literally how I taught myself to sell was Zig Ziglar books. I read every one of them. And I still have Zig Ziglar's definition of a salesman in my phone and he, a whole page on a, and it made it sound so prestigious because nowadays you like, you'd rather be
• 10:28
  a used car, it'd be anything than a salesman because people waste people's time now and everybody's out for themselves. So I love that you said exactly what he says, help other people and it'll come back to you. And then I want you to fast forward because you left out the best part of the story is you started becoming the person and then you attracted what with Zig Ziglar? This is where it gets really wild. I still pinch myself thinking about it. This is part of my- When you told me the story, I got chills. Yeah.
• 10:57
  So I got these cassette tapes. I left the seminar. I'm listening to them over and over again. I sit down with my Aunt Sue, who's kind of like my first therapist. And I said, Aunt Sue, I said, I'm going to move to Florida. I'm going to meet the woman of my dreams. I'm going to start a business. I'm going to get a great job. I got all these goals now, right?
• 11:15
  And she looks at me and says, you lost your marbles. You don't even have 75 cents to buy this coffee we're sitting with right now. And she was absolutely right. But I had a dream and I had so much desire that I was going to accomplish this. This is what I really, really wanted. So ended up moving to Florida, bounced around to a couple different jobs. And then I started working at this health club called the Q Sports Club. Got promoted four times in a row. Previous to that, I was fired four times in a row. So my mindset was definitely changing because my results were different.
• 11:45
  And one day, one of my employees walks into my office and says, Chris, you've got to take this next person around the club. And I started laughing. I'm like, dude, I just trained you how to do this. This is your job, not mine. He goes, no, no, no, you don't understand. And we used to collect the driver's licenses at the front desk for any potential member. And he slides over across the desk a driver's license. I look down and I read it. And it says, Zig Ziglar.
• 12:13
  And my heart dropped into my stomach. I was immediately nervous. I was confused. I was like, dude, what's going on? He says, Chris, I don't know what to tell you, but he said, Zig lives in Plano, Texas, where we were at the time, and he needs a health club membership. And we knew if you didn't sell it, you'd kill us. I'm like, I don't want to sell it. This guy's my hero. This guy changed my life. I'm terrified.
• 12:36
  He says, Chris, get out there and sell something to Zig Ziglar. So I actually did. I took him around the club, found out all his needs. I was using all of his techniques, by the way. But I pretended like I didn't know who he was. So we get into the closing room. And I open up two options. And I'm going to use an alternative choice close with him, which is one of his closes. And I said, Mr. Ziglar, you can join the club. We can...
• 13:01
  you know, meet all your needs here for just 45 bucks a month. Or if you want to pay in advance for three years, you'll save 15%. Which would you prefer? Also known as the witch clothes. The assumption clothes. Yeah. The assumption clothes. So I'll never forget. He's reading my two offers like this. And he looks up through the top of my top of his glasses. He stares me straight in the eye and I start to get nervous. And he goes, son, you know who I am. Don't you?
• 13:29
  Then I turned into a Swifty. Oh, wow, you changed my life. I love you. You're the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. And he started laughing, and I embarrassed myself. But it was great because after that, he said, son, you did a fine job. He said, let's go with this one because I think you get a better commission here. And I said, thank you, sir. And I said, is there anything else I can do to serve you?
• 13:52
  And he said, well. Hold on a second. Everybody get their freaking notepads out and starve because this is what he's doing. Remember, I'm going to rewind and foreshadow. He said he got the tapes. This is what I want to do. And then fast forward years later. And then he couldn't afford it just yet. And then now what happens? So I'm sitting with Zig Ziglar. And I said, is there anything else I can do to serve you? And he says, well, I do need a personal trainer. Mm-hmm.
• 14:20
  Now, the light bulb doesn't always go off for me, but it did this day. I was like, ding, ding, ding. I said, Mr. Ziegler, I said, I'll make you a deal you can't refuse. He started laughing again. He said, what's that, son? I said, sir, I will be your personal trainer three days a week for free if you'll spend just one hour a week working on my mental fitness. And he looked up at me and he said, son, I like your style.
• 14:48
  That's how I got the great Zig Ziglar to be my mentor for 12 months. I spent every week either at his church or with him or at lunch. And it was, it was a radically transforming time of my life. And it actually was the seed that was planted for what you and I are doing now. By the way, I'm curious, what was the personal development moment for you? Cause that was my defining moment. That was my launch into a different life.
• 15:15
  I'll get into that two seconds, but because I want to get back to a point that's very important. What do you think, you were in the right place at the right time doing the right things, but what mindset shift did you do
• 15:30
  to help people help yourself get into now the 1%. What was that one mindset? And it sounds like you just got started, but what is the one thing? People are listening to this podcast right now. What's the one thing? And then I'll go back to mine. What's the one thing they can do? So I'm trying to find different answers in my life or in, in my, my answer for you. And I just, it keeps resonating what the answer should be for me. It's that quote. You can have everything you want in life. If you will, but,
• 16:00
  Just help enough other people get what they want. I had it all reversed as a young man.
• 16:04
  I had it all messed up. It was me, me, me, self-absorption. What can life do for me? What can other people do for me? And I was going about it in a completely the wrong way. So that quote not only became my favorite quote, it's my lifestyle to this day. I want to help people. I want to make a difference for people. I don't have to necessarily worry about my own finances or my own issues if I'm just helping enough other people every single day.
• 16:32
  And it's rewarding. Well, I could tell you, I mean, absolute, since I've met you, all you've done is pouring to me. So, guys, if you're not following, he's on Instagram, at Coach Chris Patterson, spelled C-H-R-I-S, Coach Chris Patterson. They'll all be in the show notes. On Facebook, it's slash interchanges. YouTube, just Coach Chris Patterson. Follow him.
• 16:58
  These are real deal. I mean, the people he's introduced me to since I met you, I can't keep up with them so much. And then a couple weeks before this, or this will air after that, but you invited me. We're going to UFC. I mean, it's just he lives, breathes, and eats this. It's hard to keep up with you. So he...
• 17:19
  If you guys aren't freaking following them, follow them today. And then you asked me a question. What was my moment of mindset shift? Yeah, so for personal development, usually there's like a defining moment. For me, it was seeing Zig from stage. And I went, I need to change and follow that. Was there a specific time, maybe a rock bottom, something that happened where you went, you know what? I'm going to live differently. I'm going to improve myself. Yeah, I mean, I've talked about it on my podcast, wrote about it in my book.
• 17:45
  But it always, as you're growing, the moments kind of change. Because you can look back and they say hindsight is 20-20. And you look back and you see that that defining moment changes by who you are at that moment. So the number one thing for me was just, it was, I was in Key West, Florida, and on New Year's, 2017, going into 18. No, no, no, sorry, it's 2018 going into 2019.
• 18:12
  And I had gotten a big fight with my, my fiance and I ended up going to Key West by myself. And I was drinking in my sorrows and having a blast. And I'd convinced myself the one thing that I could do to get her back was to quit drinking. And...
• 18:30
  I made the choice to just take a break from drinking. And that's what kicked me into my personal development journey. And little did I know I didn't end up with the girl because I started, I went down this path of self-improvement that just, I declared war on myself.
• 18:47
  And then right after about a year and a half into my journey, we had the pandemic and then I really declared war. So there were two moments. It was that first decision. And then about a year or well, 15 months into that decision, we had the pandemic and I was like, okay, what the heck is going on? God, what are you, what are you teaching me right now? And it was to be comfortable being completely alone and in my emotions. And I sat there in the pandemic and,
• 19:14
  And I'd do push-ups and sit-ups. And I would read and I would write. I wrote my book during the pandemic. And that's so that one was to get started. All you had to do was get started, which was 1-1-19. So I was 1-1-1 in reverse. I made the point to get started. And then that wasn't even the hard point. I kept hitting little challenges. And then the massive, massive test went.
• 19:41
  was the pandemic hit. My ex-wife and my ex-girlfriend got together and they filed this baloney police report. And I look back on that and that was the test of God. What did you call it last night? The terror moment? The terror barrier. The terror barrier. At that moment, if I wasn't supposed to be here, I would have chose to go back to drinking and go back to the old me. And in that moment, I looked up at God and I said, you made me.
• 20:11
  You know you're not going to crack me. What is this about? And you know what it was? Now that I can look back, I had to finally put to bed the anger between my ex-wife and me. We just, that strife,
• 20:27
  so I could go on and not have to fight with it. There was zero energy being expended after we went through this little strife towards each other anymore. And it was, I could focus on harder than life, I could focus on my daughter, all the things that matter. So basically it was God clearing out all the negativity. Because up until then, you know, you guys, you've never been divorced, but what happens is when usually one person, the one that asks for the divorce, the one that gets the divorce is a little bit frustrated.
• 20:57
  And there was some animosity and she took it out on me for like 10, 11 years. And that was the, that was God saying, we're going to test you. I know you're going to pass, but we're going to clear out some negativity in your life. And I will tell you, March, April of 2020 were two of the hardest months of my life. One of my biggest customers went out of business. We didn't know when we were going to get paid. I didn't know if I was going to be in business. I didn't know when I was going to see my daughter. Yeah.
• 21:27
  And I keep full bars in my house, alcohol, I'm looking...
• 21:32
  And I'm like, man, one scotch ain't gonna hurt. And yeah, I didn't. And that was what launched Harder Than Life in the stratosphere. And now there's been defining moments and they just keep happening. And you just, I gotta say to Chris, I was so excited this morning to come hang out with you. I was excited to see you. I'm excited what we're doing next. I'm working on several deals with your friends and it's,
• 21:58
  I just sit here, a really, really grateful man, and this is what happens when you do the work. When you do the 1%, you feel that energy coming from me? It's just, it's beautiful. Life is freaking beautiful if you let it. And I think that's what we're trying to do, is we're trying to show people, look, there's a different way, there's a different side, and if you don't mind, I'd love to try to codify what you just said to me. You ended up with rock bottom. You- Hold on a second.
• 22:28
  I don't want to do respect to people in their rock bottom. Because was I at rock bottom? I had, rock bottom to me probably was years before. Me looking at myself, and it didn't, me having to live every day looking in the mirror being inauthentic, blotchy face. Not being truthful and authentic to women. I treated women, you grew up near me. We treated women like- I was a saint, I don't know about you.
• 22:58
  I saw you over there with your parachute pants and did it. Break dancing and stuff back in the 90s. But I just, I wasn't proud of the guy that I was acting. And I knew that. And I was putting on a front to fit in. And I don't want to fit in. I'm not here to fit in. I don't fit in anywhere I go. And now that I'm comfortable with that, it's...
• 23:23
  It's beautiful. So again, I probably hit rock bottom multiple times and I, and, and that wasn't rock bottom was like, okay, we're finally doing it. Now we're just going to test you. We're going to make it hard because that's why, where, why it's harder than life because you have to, when it gets hard on the other side of that hardness is growth. Absolutely. And when you lean into that, so again, I don't want, the reason why I say this,
• 23:44
  because I don't want anybody listening to this to wait to hit rock bottom before they make a change. Do the thing now. Right. I did it. You did it. You were in trouble at 24. Yep. Mine hit at 43, and I made change. Now, it happened multiple times. I didn't even think about this. When I was 24, my dad died.
• 24:05
  And I went on a binder that probably would have killed many people. I mean, I was like my family was going to have an intervention. And then I just, okay, I'm done. That's crazy things I do. I go boop, boop, boop all the time. So sorry, you were asking a question, rock bottom. What I was saying is I was listening to you, and really I'm just more or less thinking of the people that are listening to this interview. You made some critical decisions to change your trajectory. Number one, you were in a bad place.
• 24:34
  Number two, you say, enough's enough. I'm going to make a decision. Number three is you swapped fear for faith. You said, okay, that's enough of living in fear and stress and strain and everything else. I'm going to live and believe that this is going in a better direction for me. And I love what you said. People do not have to wait for a rock bottom moment to improve your life.
• 25:01
  In fact, there's a really cool scale that I look at and I go, what is my worst version of myself? Right? So if I were to look at the worst version of myself, it's me in a pair of hammer pants. Right?
• 25:17
  MC Hammer for those that don't know. MC Hammer pants, sitting in Canada, drinking tons of beer, watching hockey, eating donuts, and not taking care of myself, not taking care of anybody else, just being my worst version of myself. And I've actually been that. You got to be careful. That Canadian beer is strong. Canadian beer is strong. You got to work up to it.
• 25:38
  So that's the worst version of myself, which I'd lived that, right? Remember that thing. We'll come back to that too in a second. I want to talk about that because I think a lot of people fool themselves about their worst version. So we'll come back to that. Keep going. So then I go, okay, well, what's the best version of myself? And I still haven't reached it, obviously. I'm not there yet, but I have a vision for who I want to be, how I want to act, what I want to do, how I want to help other people. So I think if, again, like you were saying, you don't have to have a rock bottom.
• 26:08
  But if you can start to establish a vision of the person that you actually want to be, and the best question to ask yourself from there is, what do I really, really want? If you can answer that question with authenticity, you can design the highest version of yourself and then start taking daily action, top fives towards that. It sounds so simple, but it's not. What do I really want? I ask myself that every day.
• 26:39
  And the only thing, I want fulfillment. I'll ask you, what fulfills you? So that question, if you dig deep enough, you'll turn back inside. All right, so. All right, let's do that with me. Do it with me. All right. We'll do a full-blown role play, and you'll get absolute 100% vulnerability. All right, so Kelly, what do you really, really want? Ten years from now, who are you? What do you really, really want your life to look like?
• 27:09
  it's, you're going to be a standard when I tell you this, I want the world to be a better place. I don't know why it, I, it's not about me. I want to model what it's like to be like this division that we have going on in this country drives me nuts. Yeah. And I feel almost guilty that I'm so happy and that I get to do what I get to do. And all I had to do was make that one decision, that one decision. And I,
• 27:40
  I want everybody that's watching this and listening to this to understand that life can be anything you want it to be if you just do the work. And it's not as scary as living the life that you're living right now if you're unhappy. And you're not in that complete alignment and fulfillment. So, yeah.
• 27:56
  I want to figure out a way to make mass impact. And that's why I'm here with you today, because I know that this is part of my dream. This is, this is part of it. And I want to leave an imprint and leave a mark and model and inspire people that if this poor old hillbilly from South Warren can do it, anybody can do it. Why do you want to do that?
• 28:18
  because I think the world needs help. It needs more of you and me. It needs more inspirational people to just facilitate conversations. I'm not saying change, conversations, to realize that we're not that far off. You know, the left and the right, I go back to political, because we're in election season, but we all want the same things. We all believe that this country's beautiful, and we want it to live long and prosper, and we want to all be happy.
• 28:47
  But how we get there, we have to respect that there's multiple ways to do that. But the people that aren't wanting to do anything are the people that I want to inspire. And that's why I'm here with you today, and I believe that's where this live large mindset comes from. I want everybody to live large, but large in their mind. And the reason why I want that is because it just, doesn't it sound like a utopian beautiful world?
• 29:13
  And if I said anything about, I need a bigger house, I need a jet. I need, now I need the one thing I know I need to do. I need to make sure I take care of my mindset and my health. Yep. Because they say, if you put, don't put, you put your mask on before you help anybody else. Because if I'm dead, I can't help anybody.
• 29:30
  And by golly, this is going to go in the tapes and you watch in 10 years. We're going to be one of the top people influencing everybody, inspiring and motivating because I'm coming, man. And I won't stop until I get what it came for.
• 29:45
  something better. So I asked you what you really, really want. And what, what most people try to do is they go material first, right? I want the house. I want the car. I want the boat. I want this. I want that. I want this. I want that. But then when you dig deeper, you bypass that by the way, which didn't surprise me because that's what people who are deep do.
• 30:05
  They go to the internal. You started talking about passion. You started talking about purpose. You started talking about raising everybody else's boat, so to speak. Just a world I want to live in. But when you can get to that level of what do I really, really want, it does go back to internal. It's either joy, peace, patience, kindness. I want to be a giver. I want to be, you know, love, humanity. I see where you're going to go with that. So if you would have asked me that as a younger kid,
• 30:35
  You know, I want the fricking. Yeah. I remember when I graduated from high school, I just, Oh, I want to make a hundred grand by the time I'm 30. Well, I made that one at the time, you know, third year out of college. Okay. What's next? So we just kept moving those goalposts. And when I realized when I, when I,
• 30:51
  score that touchdown, it wasn't as sweet as I thought it would be. And now I realize that it's all internal. So it's just such a good thought of a world where we can get along. Bro, I got to tell you something, man. This is interesting. Again, I was being mentored by Zig.
• 31:09
  And, you know, I was young and full of piss and vinegar and just, let's go, let's go, let's go. I think that's a Detroit user thing. We definitely cut from the same rug, right? But, you know, being 26, 27 years old or whatever when I was working with Zig, and he was always talking to me about character and truth and integrity and honor and all of these words. And I'm like, yeah, Zig, that's great. But give me the silver bullet to win in life. Oh, yeah.
• 31:38
  And this is how naive I am, right? How my youth was showing. And he looked at me and he said, I want you to think about what we just talked about. And then I want you to think about that question again. And I was sitting there and I'm going, okay, he's talking to me about integrity. He's talking about, but I'm like, no, just give me the silver bullet. And he was.
• 32:00
  He said, you have to be before you do, and you have to do before you have. He was teaching me to be the right type of person. Then once you become the right type of person, you can go do the right types of things. And then you can have whatever it is you want in life. But I was trying to go to the have, and he was like, whoo, come back to the beginning, because we're not going to get to the have. We're not going to get to the do until you become the right type of person.
• 32:31
  And I love that you say that you're about 26, because at 26, I can't remember, somebody from my office just asked me, one of my employees just asked me, when did you feel like you belonged? And I was like, well, that's a trick question, but I think what you're asking me is,
• 32:47
  When did I think I was somebody? And he's like, that's what I'm asking you. And I was like, well, before I did all the work, I would have said 26, 27 when I started making a ton of money. Right. And so the reason why I bring this, I have a huge following from 15 to 45-year-olds.
• 33:05
  men and i tell you it's never too early and when you're 26 like my social media manager is he asks me all kinds of questions and i just want to know though you 25 26 year olds like 20 somethings is it's okay to not know what you're doing or what you want but listen to more of these things listen follow chris follow me
• 33:28
  uh, it's just, we did the Zig Ziglar thing. I can tell you during all of my formative, I'll call them dirtbag crazy years. Why I made all this money. Didn't like myself. I was reading every day. I've read all of Zig's books. I listened to the cassettes. I did everything. So behind closed doors, I was this nerd, but up, but out front, I was this, I had this armor on me. That was all fake.
• 33:50
  Yeah. Now fake in that it just wasn't the foundation of it. Wasn't solid. It really is me. I just had to get out of my own way and I had to get shed some other layers that were in the way of me putting on that armor because what I'm the same guy used to be. I just don't have to apologize for some of the stupid things I'd say and I can articulate it and I'm,
• 34:12
  I'm calm and cool and collected. So if you're 26 years old, you're still trying to figure it out, man, there's still time. There's a lot of time, especially with today's medicine. You're going to live a long time, but get started earlier. Work on your mind. This stuff is free. You go to YouTube and watch any of our fricking shows. You go to, you could follow Ed Milet, follow fricking Aubrey Marcus, follow Tony Robbins. It's free. So work on your mind is the number one thing. So the question I was going to ask you is what,
• 34:41
  do you personally do to keep your mindset sharp every day? Wow. I didn't realize this, but I've gotten really good at collecting quotes. And often what I, what I share with other people is to me, quotes are kind of like those, you know, you know, you go bowling and they put up the kitty bumpers. So you throw the ball. It doesn't matter if it bounces here, bounces there. It's going to guide it right down the path.
• 35:10
  So for me, it's studying and memorizing affirmations, studying and memorizing my favorite quotes, and also being able to apply those no matter what situation I run up against. You know, a simple one is, what's good about this?
• 35:27
  In business, you know as well as I do, probably on a daily basis, we have something that goes sideways. Certainly on a weekly, certainly on a monthly basis, something goes sideways. But in my mind, I've conditioned myself through repetition to ask the right question. And the right question is, well, what's good about this? Because everything has a good, everything has a bad. We can choose to focus on the bad and make ourselves sick. Or we can look at what's good and go, hey, what's good about this? And we'll find it.
• 35:57
  So I think to answer your question, though, is I've got probably hundreds of quotes that are in my head that keep me in the bumper rails. Right. I've got affirmations. And I'd love to share with you my favorite affirmation because it I don't know about you, dude, but I struggled with it with anxiety and worry. I was a professional worrier for about. Thirty five, 40 years of my life.
• 36:22
  And one of my very, very favorite affirmations to bring me out of anxiety and back into calmness and peace is this. All is well. Everything is working out for my highest good. And even in this situation, nothing but good is going to come from it. And I am safe.
• 36:43
  I probably still say that to myself two, three times a day. But to keep your mindset on track, you literally have to reprogram your mind. One of the greatest ways to do that is repetition. In fact, there's only two ways to reprogram your mind. One of them is through trauma. You and I have been reprogrammed through trauma.
• 37:05
  You know, you've had some abuse growing up and I've had all kinds of crazy stuff happen to me and those traumatic events shake us and change our mindset. But that's not the best way because often we spiral downward. So what's the best way to have a bulletproof mindset? Yeah.
• 37:21
  It's repeat what it is that you want over and over and over again. Repeat things that are incredibly important to you over and over and over again. And you can do that through affirmations. You can do that through writing out a script of what you want your life to look like. But it has to be intentional. And that's the difference between you and I and a lot of people is they're just kind of going through the steps. They're waking up every day and they're going through the motions. They're going to their nine to five and they're doing it and they're complaining and they're whining and they don't like it and everything else, but they don't.
• 37:51
  Make a decision to change. And that's what I love about you. It hurts my heart. You've made multiple decisions to change your life. And I'm going to continue making those decisions. You said anxiety, fear, and worry. And you know the funniest thing in the world is,
• 38:04
  Well, first of all, it's remarkable how close aligned we are. I have hundreds of quotes that I cite almost day in and day out. People laugh. They know what I'm going to say. I have them all on my phone. I save them. And then I interpret them like we do the Constitution. What does that mean to me? Yes. And then I read what they meant. And then I, what does that mean to me? And then I leverage it.
• 38:28
  And I usually have a perfectly good time. The mantra that you say every day, I say a version of it. I told you this before, but whenever I get anxious, it's usually in an airplane. You are safe. You are loved. You're okay.
• 38:43
  How similar is that? Very similar. Very similar. Here we are. We grew up next to each other. We're here in Florida next to each other. And yet it's maybe we're maybe we're separated twin flames. I don't know. But the yes, you said about the anxiety, fear and worry. What did you let's dig deep into this with you. What were you? What was what was the root of the anxiety and the worry?
• 39:06
  Um, so growing up the, the biggest conversation I heard with my parents before they split was always money, money, money.
• 39:16
  Um, my dad was an attorney. There was times he was making great money and then there was times he wasn't making great money and it was up and down. And, and then once they had a split, both their money went down. Right. So my father had a challenging time financially. My mom did as well. And as a 10 year old kid, I'm sitting there listening to this stuff over and over there. I'm being programmed, right? I'm listening to money, money, money, money's the, money's the problem. We don't have enough. It's, it's, it's lack, it's scarcity over and over and over again.
• 39:45
  And that got into me, obviously, my DNA, my paradigm, if you will. My paradigm was filled with lack and scarcity and fear. And I rode that out, honestly, until I was in my 40s. Now, I was a high achiever, so I was winning. I was growing a business, and then I was growing another business, and I was making money, and I was doing well. But here's what I was missing. Right.
• 40:15
  I was missing joy in the process. I was so anxious, so stressed out. I was in this super high gear. If I wasn't stressed, I felt like something was wrong and I better get myself stressed. And what did that do? That led to
• 40:31
  That led to a nervous breakdown when I was 42 years old. I had to take a six-month sabbatical away from work. I didn't know if my company was going to survive it. Thankfully, it did because I've got a phenomenal team over at Interchanges. And, you know, we've got to get to a place where we're going to decide, am I going to live in fear the rest of my life or am I going to live in faith? It takes...
• 40:58
  It takes an imagination to live in fear, and it also takes your imagination to live in faith. Are you going to misuse your imagination, which is for our good, and think about all the worst case scenarios? Or can we use our imagination and go, what's the best case scenario that's going to come from this? Our choice is ours. We can focus on one or the other. I choose now to live in faith. I choose now to live in calmness. I choose now to live in peace. I choose now to live in peace.
• 41:27
  And ironically, all my businesses grew when I made this shift in my mindset. That's crazy, right? Because you're like, no, no, no, you've got to be a grinder. You've got to go hard. And all these other influencers out there, which I totally disagree with, by the way. You know, grow sleep when you're dead and grind till you die. It's just like, okay, okay, okay.
• 41:49
  I understand work ethic's important, but there's also got to be a balance. If your pendulum is so swung to one side or the other, bring yourself back to some type of balance because it can be detrimental to your health. Yeah, what you're saying is faith over fear, both...
• 42:04
  are believing in something in the future and neither one may happen. So really to bring the pendulum back is just be present. Focus on today. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. All we have is today. That's why it's a gift and let's be present. So what you keep saying over and over is consistency. Just be consistent.
• 42:25
  And essence, it's so simple, but it's so hard. But this is why you and I teach what we teach. This is why we want to help people is because we have a process that's worked for you and I. We're just trying to replicate the process across as many people as we possibly can, right? And again, whether it's you, whether it's me or somebody else, the most important thing is just to make the decision, I'm going to become the best version of myself. Right.
• 42:51
  What happened when you were 42 and you had that nervous breakdown? What was going on? Oh, man. Wait a minute. Hold on. 42? I was 42 years old. I was 43 when I made my decisions. Again, it's eerily similar. Steven's over there laughing. He's like, yeah, you guys are twins separated at birth. That's for sure. I know. Could you imagine us running around New York City in a couple of weeks? It's just going to be, they're going to get it. They're going to kick it. We're going to be waiting at the airport with us like, you two got to go through home and security first.
• 43:22
  Anyway, I'm sorry. What was your question? It was, what happened at 42? At 42. So I'd been running my business. And honestly, I kind of didn't know what I was doing.
• 43:34
  Uh, it was a fake it till you make it type guy. I was trying this, trying that. I, I was just trying to fix the business. The stress had got so high. I was hiring the wrong kind of people. Um, I had the wrong business model and I was just going into what I called the wood chipper every day. So my wife's like, what's the wood chipper? I'm like, it's my office. Every time I go in there, I feel like I'm being shoved through a wood chipper. I just come up bloody and broken and 10,000 pieces. And, uh,
• 44:02
  Now, looking back at it, what I was actually doing is I was so focused on what I didn't want that I was attracting all that into my life. I didn't want to lose clients. I was attracting that into my life. I didn't want an employee to leave, and they would leave, and I would attract that into my life. So I got to a place where I started to understand, man, this is a lot of my own making because I'm so full of anxiety. I'm so stressed. I'm so fearful.
• 44:31
  And I remember walking in one time and I used to look at this whiteboard every day when I came in and I'd write out my top fives. And I remember sitting down in that chair the final day and I looked up and I'm like, I can't write one top five today. I can't do it. And I said, I went and I talked to a mentor of mine and he said, Chris, you need to go on vacation. Not now, but right now.
• 44:56
  I was overweight. My blood pressure was through the roof. My stress levels were off the charts. And my cortisol must have been crazy. And then I went to a doctor after I talked to my friend. And she looked at me and she said, you've got two options here.
• 45:11
  She said, you can either get an ambulance right now and go to the hospital. We're going to submit you for 30 days. Because I was talking about killing myself, throwing a grenade into the building. I said, I'm going to pull all my people out of the building. I'm going to throw a grenade in there. Just blow the damn thing up. I was tongue in cheek. Yeah, I know what you mean. But she was like...
• 45:30
  Oh, you need to go to the hospital. I'm giggling because I've been there, man. Right about the same time, too. It's like every day it was like, what was I going to walk in the office and get my butt kicked in that day? And it's just like I'm looking into a mirror with you. It's remarkable.
• 45:48
  It was wild. And I finally got to a place, though. I spent six months sitting beside my pool, drooling because I'm on freaking medication. And I'm just sitting there staring at a damn pool for six months. And I finally got to the end of it, and I went, I need to think differently. Mm-hmm.
• 46:12
  thoughts become things like they really do. I know this is so simple, but if you think about a thing long enough, you're going to get that thing. I like to, I like to share this anecdote, but you take two 10 year old boys. One has just the worst negative thinking. Can't stand himself in the gutter. Just doesn't like himself, hates himself. And then you got another kid full of self-esteem, happy, loves other people, taking care of himself. Can't wait. He's excited about life.
• 46:40
  Now, if both of these 10-year-olds on the football team have exactly the same amount of talent, which one of those do you think is actually going to win in life? Naturally, it's going to be the kid with the better attitude, with the better outlook, with the better thinking. So thoughts do become things. And I was literally attracting this crazy, stressful, anxious time into my life, and I didn't even know it.
• 47:07
  And this is where I share with people all the time is we need to work from the inside out, not from the outside in. What does that look like, Chris? We need to be so strong in our purpose, so strong in our vision, so strong in our faith that we're going to become the better person, that no matter what happens outside of us externally,
• 47:30
  What's going on inside always trumps it. And that's the way I started to live. And that's how I teach people how to live now. You're the real deal. I love you. I love everything about you. I'm going to show you something. 8.36 this morning, I wrote a note in my phone. And I gave it to my iPad here. It's always more effective to act your way into feeling than to feel your way into action. Wow. Wow.
• 47:54
  836 this morning. Say that again. Say that again. I want to hear that. Read it. It's always more effective to act your way into feeling than to feel your way into action. Because you would have it the reverse way. It doesn't work the other way. Right. You just said that. That's literally what you just said to me.
• 48:11
  um you thoughts become feelings feelings become action yep yep so and it's not my work that was john maxwell sure and so i i'm not trying to take that he's the grand poobah this stuff but isn't it weird uh 8 36 this morning i put that in there
• 48:28
  getting i think we were supposed to do this podcast getting kooky man oh again that's the only thing that we differ from what i did is i was spending so much energy during that time that my 20s chasing things that didn't matter i chased relevance i chased money i chased women i traced love
• 48:53
  And so I expended 50 to 75% of my daily energy on things that didn't matter. Yep. And I wasn't even capable of receiving. So it's hard still for me to receive. I mean, you bought dinner, you bought cigars last night. I'm like, I get antsy because I just, I've always been able to provide myself. So it's, I'm still a work in progress. Can I give you a quote to help you with that? Of course. You know, we got all these quotes in my head. Yeah.
• 49:23
  Willingly give and graciously receive. They're both important. Yes, we should willingly give to people, but we should also graciously receive when somebody blesses us. One of the hardest things for me to learn when somebody gave me a compliment, you know, due to my own insecurities and whatnot, is just say two words, which is thank you.
• 49:46
  But I would always, oh, no, no, you're the man, not me. Or, oh, no, no, you don't know my upbringing. Or, well, that sounds good, but my wife would disagree. Like I was always trying to. Or what's the one that I'm working on myself, work in progress. Yeah, yeah. I'm getting better every day. But why not, when somebody gives you a compliment, imagine they've got in their hand a little gold present with a red ribbon, right? And they're giving you something.
• 50:12
  When you blow it off and go, oh, no, no, that's not really me. And you're just knocking the gift out of their hand. Instead, just say, thank you, man. That means a lot to me. I appreciate that. Right? Willingly give. Graciously receive. What's funny, you say graciously receive. I literally now, to anchor that, receive. I'll say, I receive that.
• 50:36
  so I can feel it. That's great. So then I'll say, I received that, thank you. And that anchors it for me. What do you think it is about you that made you reject when people would show you love, give you love? Dude, there was no love growing up.
• 50:53
  I mean, the people that were supposed to keep me safe almost killed me. And so I could tell you stories that you probably even are familiar with. I was thinking about it this morning because you brought up some stuff as you were telling me stories about running around Hamtramck. I was thinking, like, holy cow, to fit in, I ran around with some undesirables, and we got into some situations. I remember walking into someone's house who had started a fight with one of our friends. We had knives. We were going in there to kill people.
• 51:21
  And that was, that was because, so one of my questions here that I had later was, what does loyalty mean to you? To me, loyalty means everything because I never had it. And I, I, I would do anything for love, loyalty and food because we didn't have any of that in the house. So, and everything in my life, I had to bite, scratch, claw and fight for it.
• 51:47
  So talk about a scarcity mindset. But when you're talking about anxiety, fear, and worry, there was nobody to cry to. There was nobody to worry to, which is me. And then I'd have to duck and dodge my drunk parents coming home from beating on me. And that's why I'm a big boy now.
• 52:02
  So where I was getting to all this is we've gone all this time. We haven't talked about anything about fitness because if you guys look, you're a beautiful man in excellent shape. Where does physical fitness fit into this grand scheme of living large?
• 52:21
  It's a huge component for not just me, but anybody, right? I really think he's- Huge, no pun intended. Yeah. This guy's big as a house. That's large. I'm not bigger than you. That's okay. He looks like a Lego block when he walks in. Yeah.
• 52:37
  Yeah, I apologize for how I'm dressed. I'm in your neighborhood. I refuse to check bags, so I had to pack everything I can. So don't indict me on this. I am who I am, and I'm comfortable, and it's nice.
• 52:53
  Physical fitness, man. You'll probably remember all this, but I just remember growing up, 14, 15 years old, magazines with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold and Lee Priest and all these big bodybuilders, right? And that just influenced me so much. And I was like, yeah, maybe I could lift weights.
• 53:10
  I remember getting those plastic gold weights with the cement poured into it. Dude, you just went all back. I had literally plastic weights where the cement, where the plastic part would break. Yeah, it would pull off. And a wood bench. We had the whole thing, right? But that's when I started lifting. I was like 15 years old. And I remember being in my dad's basement and he bought me his weights and I'm just doing curls. I didn't know what I was doing.
• 53:36
  But there was something, now I can say the word, I didn't know what I was feeling back then, but there's something therapeutic about it. The one thing, and I told my son, both my sons work out, I was working out with my youngest son the other day, and I said, I want you to remember something. I said, the gym is never, ever going to let you down. He's like, what do you mean? I said, you see all those weights across the wall?
• 54:00
  I said, those pieces of iron will be here tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day, as long as the gym doesn't close, but move to another gym. My point is, it's been so therapeutic to be able to, what I do, and I know this isn't popular for a lot of influencers, but for me personally, I get up in the morning, I do my meditations, I get to work, and then right around 3, 3.30, that's when I want to clear my mind.
• 54:25
  the best way to clear my mind is go have a nice workout. So it's been a staple of my life. And I've been up and I've been down. I've been fat. I've been shredded. I've been everywhere in between. But now where I'm at it, I'll be 56 in April. And pretty happy I got a resemblance of abs under there. They may not last to tonight. But I'm feeling pretty good. You know what I mean? And now it's a lot about balance.
• 54:55
  And I don't look at weightlifting in the gym like I used to because I wanted to get big and I wanted to get shredded and all that kind of stuff. I look at more as therapy. I look at it as my health session. I look at it as my sanity session. And I still go in there and I lift hard and work hard, but it's a different mentality at my age than it used to be.
• 55:15
  For me, the gym is survival. So that's what I told you this morning or yesterday at dinner that when I started working out, that's when the beating stopped for my stepdad. So I was like, ooh. How big was your dad, your stepdad? He was a big boy. He was a little overweight. So he was 265, 6'2", 6'1", 6'2". The issue with me is I was tiny. How big were you when you were taking all this abuse? Oh, 100 pounds. Wow. Okay, so you were a kid. I did not fill out.
• 55:45
  My birthday's late. It's in November. So in Michigan, you can go to school if your birthday is before December 1st. So I started a year before everybody. This has been since changed. You have to be...
• 56:00
  Is it five before the school year starts? Well, I was five, you had to be five before November 1st or December 1st and I just barely made it. So then a lot of kids in my high school were held back a grade, which they did that back in our days.
• 56:15
  uh, they didn't give them fricking participation trophies. So they'd hold kids back cause they needed further development. And then I was young. So it was nothing for me to be in classes with people that were two and three years older than me and play football with people three and four years older than me. So I always had a disadvantage for that, but I used it as an advantage. So,
• 56:34
  Having said that, what you see now didn't fill out till probably my sophomore year in college. I was 19 and that's kind of when I learned creatine and supplements and how to lift. That's the first time to this day that I learned to work one body part a day.
• 56:55
  I didn't realize that I used to go in and do chest and I do like the upper body, you know, full body. And I had, I was muscular and strong, but it wasn't like,
• 57:07
  I got when I went to college, I learned how to lift. I got to join a fraternity and, and I went, so what I was getting at is I've never left a gym angry. Yeah. That is the cheapest therapy. Or have you ever left the gym regretting it? No, never once. And I've gone to the, so what do they say? Anything that feels good before it,
• 57:29
  is not good for you and anything that feels bad for you before doing it is good for you. Exactly. So it's like, I don't ever wanna go to the gym. And the funniest thing in the world is how I know everything's working out for me is I go to the gym at 5 a.m. every morning because when I used to party, I had to get in the gym so I could stay in shape so I could attract the girls.
• 57:49
  And I knew that if I got it out in the morning, I start with the hardest things. And it's just become addicted to me. So you go at three 30. I've since been going back in and hitting a second workout to just get the endorphins moving because launching the podcast, writing the book, launching the coach and we got a massive cybersecurity company that's blowing up. I've got a little bit on my plate. Right. And I am, I don't want to say stressed, but tired.
• 58:15
  I leave, I drain the gas tank every day, and it's usually drained by 2 o'clock. And you know me. You've figured out one thing about me. I'm going to push the limit, and I'm going to steal into tomorrow. So that's probably why cocaine was so much fun. You get tomorrow's energy today! So I'm going to push the... Tomorrow's energy today. Yeah. I'm going to push the boundaries. That's why you see me... I could just see Scarface in his pile of cocaine.
• 58:42
  Tomorrow's energy today. You go into a Scarface. You know, it's funny. I wish they'd do a remake and he actually lives. I, I'm the one of the guys that I was, I've seen it 27 times, by the way, one of my favorite movies, 27 times. Are you and I were probably watching it at the same time? Who didn't like the gangster movies? Oh, and, and also the going from the outhouse to the penthouse, you know, his story of, of living and winning. I still quote lines from that. Oh, me too. Um, um,
• 59:10
  You got the wrong guy, man. You want to play rough? You got the wrong guy, man. I am a political refugee. So we talk about the gym, fitness. What would you say is the most underrated skill for achieving big goals? Well, besides consistency, because I really do think one of my other favorite quotes is little by little, I'm sorry, brick by boring brick, we build this home, right?
• 59:40
  How does a home get built? Well, brick by boring brick. How does a goal get built? Brick by boring brick. So there has to be that consistency. The second thing, though, that I think, and, you know, I talk a lot about internal gifts that we have, higher faculties that we have. There's the will, the will to win. There's intuition. There's imagination. There's memory. There's perception. And then there's reasoning skills. Okay.
• 1:00:07
  Again, everything goes back internal. So how do you win? For me, it's having the will to win. So a lot of people are like, oh, I got a good idea. I'm going to go for it. I'm going to start. And they see this vision. But on their way to the path, they're always going to end up hitting something. And that's called resistance. That's what I call the terror barrier.
• 1:00:27
  When you hit the terror barrier, it's going to press you and push you and test you, like you always say. Do you really want this? Is this really what you want? Why don't you go back to the comfort zone? It's so much more comfortable. It's so much easier back there. Why don't you just turn around and go back? Well, every time we set a goal, especially if it's a big goal, especially if it's a goal that's something that's worthwhile, that excites us and makes us get out of bed in the morning and also scares us a little bit too, we've got to be prepared that the terror barrier is coming.
• 1:00:56
  We're going to hit some kind of resistance, some big problem, something that looks insurmountable. And the people that win do not let that emotion stop them. And that's really important. We have this terror barrier emotion, which human beings call fear. And as soon as we hit that, we need to recognize this is part of the process. And the people that can go, this is part of the process, I'm going to keep pushing forward are the ones that always win.
• 1:01:25
  You know, you didn't get to where you're at today by not pushing past your fears, by not pushing past the difficulties. You had to smash through the terror barrier probably dozens, hundreds of times in your career. And I think that's what holds people back the most. They get a great idea. I'm going to go for it. I'm going to start. They get two months into it and they give up. Perfect analogy. How many times? You've been in the gym forever like I have. I have.
• 1:01:49
  How many times has January come around and you see every walk of life? I hate it. Come walking through the doors and they made a decision. Okay, that's it. My New Year's resolution this time is really real. I'm going to work out. And what happens?
• 1:02:08
  They get a month in. It's not even a month. What did they say? It's the ninth day at 80%. It's either 9 or 12. I can't remember. We'll have to look this up. It's insane. It's either day 9 or day 12. 85% of the people fall off. Correct. They actually, last year I heard it the first time that they celebrate the day. Here's...
• 1:02:26
  Quitter's day or whatever it is. I'm going to look that up so we can put it in. But the point there is people have this goal in mind, but they don't prepare themselves emotionally, internally. What if the diet sucks? What if I don't like my personal trainer? What if it hurts too much? What if I feel tired? What if I don't want to get out of bed? And they give all these what ifs and they, what if they're way right out of the goal and they go back to their comfort zone.
• 1:02:54
  I got a quote for you that you'll love since the ifs. I always say this. If my aunt had nuts, she'd be my uncle. How do you know that the terror barrier isn't God telling you this isn't your path? I think if you can root your goal with your passion and your purpose, that's called desire.
• 1:03:18
  If it's something you really, really, really desire, you're going to know before you hit the terror barrier, especially if you have the cognizant idea of that, this isn't going to be easy. I'm going to have some obstacles. I'm going to have some speed bumps along the way. If you prepare yourself in advance that those are coming, then you'll just push right through them. But if it's not really tied to your purpose, if it's not really tied to your desire, desire is the starting point of everything. You know, why are we doing this?
• 1:03:46
  You know, why are we having these YouTube videos and these conversations and everything else? Because we desire to make a difference. Well, what if it gets hard? It's going to get hard. We know it's going to get hard. Is that going to stop us? No, because our desire is always going to trump whatever difficulties. Hey, maybe that's the title of a book. Desire trumps difficulties. I don't know. That's a good one. The terror barrier, I would...
• 1:04:08
  throw you a alternative point and i would say that that is a decision point that could be your pivot point that could be your decision time that's where you know i had a the terror barrier was march 20th uh 2020 i could have it was god put in front of me and said okay path a continue doing what you're doing path b is go back to the man you are
• 1:04:32
  and I could have very easily gone back, and I was living a good life. I didn't have to worry about money, I didn't have to worry about anything. I could still be a successful party animal. A successful party animal. Well, I was more than successful at it. I had a PhD in that party. Well, you and I both. Yeah, right, so, but it just wasn't fulfilling, and it wasn't sustainable. That's the biggest thing, sustainable. I knew that if I continued on that path,
• 1:05:01
  I just, I wouldn't be here long. My dad died at 46. Wow. I was convinced I was going to die at 46. And at 46, I had the best year of my life yet. And it was like, I wasn't going to do that. Can I ask you a question? Man, I love all your questions. Well, dude, you're one of the most vulnerable people I've ever met in my life. Thank you. I received that. Why is it that you're so vulnerable?
• 1:05:29
  I want to come back to that for two seconds. I asked you that question, what would you say is the most underrated skill for achieving big goals? And you went into, and I wrote down emotional intelligence. Essentially. And I wrote that down before you answered. So I want people to understand what emotional intelligence is. It's doing the work on yourself to respond differently than the way you've always done. Because you're programmed the same way. And if you've always done what you always did, you're going to get what you always had.
• 1:06:00
  I've never been asked that question, by the way, why am I so vulnerability? And it just literally gave me, made me, I felt like I just went down a roller coaster and excites the hell out of me. Why am I so vulnerable? Because I don't want anybody. I'm cute, I'm holding back crying on this one. This is a tough one. I don't want anybody to have to go through what I went through as a child.
• 1:06:27
  There was a point where my stepfather was drunk and he was drowning me in water that I couldn't possibly know was there because my mom was getting ready to go out and get drunk. So she left her bathtub water and somehow, some way, it was my responsibility to empty her bath water even though I wasn't there. My drunk father, stepfather comes home and was drowning in there. It wasn't for me, my hands filling and grabbing the old school tubs that you pulled the drain plug.
• 1:06:56
  I didn't deserve that. And nobody deserves that. It was the, when I was nine years old on my birthday, my mom wailing in my face and gouging my eye out cause she was drunk. And if I can be vulnerable and tell you a story about having a gun to my head or getting run over or getting beat or having to empty a jar of piss every day or cutting fricking moles off of my stepfather's groin,
• 1:07:25
  And it helps one person. By all means, I'll tell everything. I'll tell everything and bring me. I have two more books in my head that are coming out where we're going to tell more. And it was cathartic. So this is for everybody else. It's giving everybody else. And it also brings us closer. Our stories brings us closer. So if I'm vulnerable with you, you know it's safe to be vulnerable back with me. And that's going to bring us closer because I'm all about...
• 1:07:51
  I'm still looking for that brotherhood. I'm still looking for love, but I'm looking for it in all the right places now. And I'm attracting it. Dude, you were up on stage and you walked right over to me and just started talking to me while you're on stage. And we, I knew it was the beginning of everything. So, um,
• 1:08:08
  I just am what I claim to be. I show people who I am, and I invite you to come join me. And that's what you get when you join my coaching program, too. I'm going to pour in everybody. Chris, you asked me a question I want to add, too, by the way, about the vulnerability. Why am I so vulnerable? You know what else being vulnerable does? It pushes the wrong people away from you.
• 1:08:29
  I'm sorry, it pushes people that aren't for you away. Because when you are vulnerable and someone uses it negatively against you, you know those people aren't for you. I love that. Because a lot of what we've been talking about is all the positive things to do. One positive thing that you can do in life is just eliminate a lot of negatives.
• 1:08:52
  Oh, for sure. And by eliminating the people in your life that are going to judge you and hold things against you and make fun of you about things that were nothing to do with your control, it's an addition with my subtraction. So it does both angles. It helps. And then it gets the people away from you that don't need to be around you.
• 1:09:11
  Your story is so powerful. I was curious, you know, both your mom and your stepfather were alcoholics and abusive towards you. Have you ever found a way to forgive them? Yeah, it took a lot of therapy. I went to talk therapy, EMDR therapy, hypnotherapy, plant medicine therapy. And just one day I was walking through, I was in Florida at my house.
• 1:09:41
  And I don't know what happened, but it made me think of my stepfather, when things got really bad, he quit drinking. He quit because he had his ninth drunk driving. Nine drunk drivers. Imagine this is like in the 80s and 90s, so it was no big deal.
• 1:09:57
  Get a ticket and go on to the next one. So long story short, he quit drinking. And he didn't have the tools that we have today. He didn't have YouTube that you can go, what do you do? He quit cold turkey. What did I do? Cold turkey. He was an early morning riser. So what I did is I took the message that they were trying to teach me.
• 1:10:19
  And I left the mess. And by the way, I forgave them for me. I had to. Because I was drinking the poison and expecting them to die. And...
• 1:10:31
  And there's been several opportunities where they've reached out to me and I've just said, no, thank you. So they're still alive. I have zero contact with them. And I will see them at their funeral. But I forgive them because I forgive them because I have to move on. And they did the best they could, Chris. That's what I look at. They did not have the tools. They did not have the skills. They did not have the skills.
• 1:10:52
  And they gave me everything they could. I could have used a little more love, but now I'm getting it in droves from people like you, people like Steven, people that I choose. I don't even choose in my life. They just ascend into my life and attach. And this is what I was begging for all through my formative years. Yeah.
• 1:11:13
  And now I've become the man that deserves all that, has earned all that. And I have so many close personal friends that I text with daily. Yeah. And it's rewarding. That's the...
• 1:11:28
  But here's the best part is that I love being alone and I'm comfortable being alone. But if I don't want to be, I have massive amounts of friends that like, hey, let's go to UFC. Let's hang out. It's like, okay. I get to do some cool things all because I said no. How much did forgiving your parents free you? Wow. If, wow. Wow.
• 1:11:57
  a lot more than you'd think.
• 1:12:00
  because every time I thought I'd forgive them, I would be presented another growth opportunity, and then I'd unpack that and realize, oh, there's still something I'm holding on with my parents. And literally, that stinking thinking is not serving you. So when I fully 100% forgave them, that's when I got my life back. And that's when the business started taking off, that's when the brand started taking off, and it was like when you're truly free.
• 1:12:29
  Yeah. And that's that freedom in your mind, as you know, is it's what we're all searching for at peace and freedom. And I throw in clarity because you need to know what you're going to do. What, what do you, what are you here for? What, why did I have to go through all this? Yep. So yeah, it was, I would still say deep down all the way through my, my journey until, until that day that I had that epiphany that he did the best they could. And he wasn't equipped. I mean, my mom, my mom,
• 1:13:00
  It's just, it's just both of their parents beat them. Yeah. Both of their parents were big drinkers. And so that's all they do. It's right. Our buddy at my let says it all the time. There has to be the one that stops the chain of abuse and boom. Yep. I'm the one man. And you'll hear me joke around. I'm the chosen one because there's gotta be a reason why I'm still here being shot at.
• 1:13:28
  being stabbed, being beaten, being run over. You know, I'm here for a reason. You're here for this. I mean, literally this. Like, this is...
• 1:13:39
  You're calling, bro. First time I met you, I knew before I even heard your voice. I said, that guy's a difference maker. And it was so awesome to go to lunch or go to dinner with you and have you prove that to me. So I knew that I knew that I knew. But and also, I just wanted to share with you, I'm really, really grateful that you made a decision to become better, not bitter. One of the hardest things that we can do in life is go through life with a hard heart.
• 1:14:08
  Hold on a second. I love that. I love that. But I will tell you I was bitter for, that's the pill that I would say that you're drinking the poison expecting them to die. That was bitterness. I was bitter. Why me? Why did they do that to me?
• 1:14:22
  And it was the moment that I forgave them, just to go right back to your question, that's when the bitterness ended. And that's when I started getting better. So you're holding on to that rope. And I remember doing an EMDR therapy session where it was literally they did this, it wasn't EMDR, it was hypnotherapy. And you're holding on to this rope and you're holding on to this rope. And the metaphor was I was holding on to the fact that I wanted my parents to love me.
• 1:14:47
  And when I released that rope, it was, I don't need it any longer. And it's profound in that I just wanted their love. And the fact is, they don't love themselves. So how are they going to love me? Right. They can't. So when I was able to let go of that proverbial rope,
• 1:15:05
  the energy that I was able to pour into you and into my life and into everybody else and all my coaches, uh, is tremendous. So I'm telling you, if you're holding on to something, you are only holding your life back.
• 1:15:18
  Yeah, I can relate. There was a time in my life when a girl that I thought I was going to marry, and I was like head over heels for this girl. Sounds familiar. I was 24 years old, and I'm thinking, this is it. This is the girl, right? And she broke my heart, bro. I'm not even going to die.
• 1:15:37
  What's my son say? I'm not even going to cap. No cap. I was freaking tore up from the floor up, man. It was bad. And, you know, I went a good year. Bitter, angry, just a mess, drinking, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, just destroying myself. And it was over my own bitterness towards what had happened to me. And my dad said that little simple quote to me. He said, Chris, you said it's much better to get better, not bitter.
• 1:16:06
  He said, don't go through life with a hard heart. And when he said that to me, I said, you know, I really do have this choice. I don't like the feeling of being bitter. I just don't know any different. And that's where forgiveness came in. Next thing you know, I'm living free again.
• 1:16:25
  That's for doing the work. You get the skills to be able to do that. Right. We don't have the skills until we learn it. So you'll hear a lot of cliches out of you and I. We're great quote people. And that is, you look back at your life and everything happens for you. That heartbreak was meant to teach you a lesson. A thousand percent. Fortunately, what we do as people is we keep getting hit over the head with that lesson that God keeps showing us, hey, knucklehead. Yeah.
• 1:16:51
  It's time to stop drinking. It's time to stop being a man whore. But yet, oh, no, I'm great at this. Let's just keep going until I made the change. And then all of a sudden, oh, that's what you were showing me. And by the way, how many people out there right now need to just listen to what we went through? Don't wait for this to happen to you. Don't wait for you to get bitter and angry and ticked off and ruin your life and be self-destructive. Listen to two guys that have been through hell and back.
• 1:17:19
  that are telling you you can have a better life now. The smartest people learn from other people's mistakes. Absolutely. They say, you learn from your own mistakes. No, no, no. Learn from my mistakes. Because I've got to tell you, it was expensive, it was fun, and lots of painful. Yeah, a lot of pain. And I remember having conversations with mentors back in the day, and I thought they were crazy. And they were saying the same thing we were saying. I had a grandmother that was much like your aunt. She tried to teach me.
• 1:17:49
  I was just a knucklehead. I knew better. Don't man, don't do it. All right, let's get through a couple more quick questions. Uh, then we're gonna have a, I got a couple of fun ones for us. Sounds fun. But a little, let's take a couple more business. When you're not building businesses and coaching, what's your favorite way to unwind? Oh my gosh, this is embarrassing. I can't believe I'm going to finally confess this publicly. You ready for this, Steven? Yeah.
• 1:18:15
  Fortnite. Okay. This is where we end our friendship. And now, well, no, it's actually true. I, I, uh, I go, I work really hard during the day. I get my workout done. And one of the ways that I just kind of de-stress or de-stress,
• 1:18:32
  unthink of everything that happened during the day. I was like, I'll play 30, 40 minutes of Fortnite almost every night. So I'm saying that in jest, I suppose, but I honestly do. I love playing Fortnite. My kids laugh at me. One of my kids was actually a Fortnite champion. He was top 100 in the world. There's like 81 million. Did you make money playing this game? Yeah, he was making all kinds of money back when it was on the rise. Like tens and tens. Him and his partner, I think, did...
• 1:19:01
  over a couple hundred thousand dollars combined in, uh, in playing Fortnite. So that's when I kind of got the bug and I was like, Oh, I want to have something in common, but now I still play it cause I love it and it just kind of defrags me from the inside out. But other than that, man, I'm a pretty simple person. I really love to have a quiet and simple life. And, uh, no, I live large and,
• 1:19:21
  People like you, that's living large, right? Doing podcasts and hanging out with Stephen and enjoying what I do is living large. But when I'm not in front of a microphone or a camera, I just want to have a quiet and peaceful life. I got a 1969 Chevelle. That's bad.
• 1:19:39
  I love taking that thing out on the weekends and just booting around. I like to smoke an occasional cigar, get out and golf once in a while. I like going to networking events. So I love people. I love people. So if I can be around people, I'm a pretty happy guy. You're always you because both times that we've been out, I wouldn't even say late. It had been 9 o'clock. You're like, okay, I got to go mid-cigar. I got to go.
• 1:20:03
  And last night he did the same thing. I started laughing. I was driving home. I was talking to Brittany and I said, I love that Chris is not a late night guy.
• 1:20:11
  I probably have like the funny thing about- Oh, I used to be. I probably have about 30 minutes left in me when you do these, by the way. So about 9.30, I'm going to start yawning. It was nine o'clock. I said, I'm out. And when you said, I didn't even say anything. I'm like, cool. I've got my fill of crisps and that's why. So just for the cheap seats, all the way in the back, for the listeners wanting to think and act like the top 1%, we've said it over and over, but I want you to remind, where's the best place to start?
• 1:20:42
  I mean, honestly, just take my free mini course. It's quantumleapmindset.com. I got three little mini courses in there that you should take. It'll get you started, especially if you haven't been living a life of intentionality. It'll give you some of the practical tools to start thinking differently, start running out your goals properly, and understand what's holding you back. In that course, I talk about goal setting, number one.
• 1:21:09
  Then I talk about overcoming bad habits that are pulling you backwards. And then we talk about the terror barrier, about getting you past some of the fears that are holding you back from the life that you want. So I'd recommend just, it's free, quantumleapmindset.com. I would start there.
• 1:21:26
  Yeah, make sure you're following at Coach Chris Patterson on IG. He's pretty active on there. You can see his life behind the scenes. And just so we had it right, it's quantumleapmindset.com backslash mini-course. Yes. So you'll find it when you're on there. Even if you just go to quantumleapmindset.com, it'll bring you...
• 1:21:42
  Cool. There's some great freebies on that site, guys. Head right over there. Follow Chris. You'll see our escapades at the UFC. We're probably going to get in lots of trouble. You've coached some real high achievers, but between us, what would you say is the most uncoachable thing about yourself? Oof. Oof. I can be stubborn. I can be set in my ways.
• 1:22:12
  I think if I have a good coach and I've had dozens of coaches, I still have three in my life right now. Um, um,
• 1:22:20
  I think I'm better at being coachable now than I've ever been. But certainly when I was younger, I just thought I had it all figured out. You know, 20s, 30s for sure. I was just known it's my way. It's my way. I'll do it my way. And I had good people intentionally trying to make me better, but I was just too stubborn. And I recognize it in a second with my students now. And I just tell them, I say, listen, you don't have to take my advice. You're paying me for my advice, but you can do what you want with this advice.
• 1:22:49
  Do you want to get better or do you want to stay the same? And, uh, I could have said that to myself because there's been plenty of times where, you know, again, high achievers, there's a reason we're high achievers because we're pretty confident. We're, we're not afraid to make decisions. We're not afraid to take risks. So then somebody from the outside comes in and goes, you need to start living differently. Well, I don't know if you're going to talk to me that way.
• 1:23:16
  So I would say that's been a challenge. It isn't anymore, really. But certainly there was a long time where I felt like I knew better than everybody else. I swear that's a...
• 1:23:26
  Windsor, Detroit then, because you couldn't tell me anything. I wouldn't have listened. I knew everything. And I got to tell you, the older I get and the wiser I get and the more I learn, the more I realize everything I thought I would have lived and died by was full of shit. Yeah. So I guess I would say the less I know. The more certain I was about something, the less true it was. Yeah.
• 1:23:48
  Well, and the older you get, the more you realize how much you don't know. You know, it's like, think about all the information in the world, like all the information that exists, all the information on the Internet, you know, all the encyclopedias and all the history books. You take all that information.
• 1:24:04
  we don't even know 0.0001% of what's actually available as far as wisdom and knowledge. And that's why it cracks me up when I do run into a young man that looks and acts just like I used to. And I go, you got it all figured out, man. You don't need me. I've read hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of books. I've been to lots of coaches. I've taken lots of seminars. It's amazing. I'll go back and reread a book. And I'm like, oh.
• 1:24:32
  I missed all that. We retain so little of what we read and what we take in. So it's that reticular activating system that frickin' is always judging. Well, is this right? Is it wrong? Is it right? Is it wrong? And we're seeing it right now with the election. For sure. Ooh. So we know you hold people. We know you help people think like the top 1%, but what's something you'd never want to be in the top 1% of?
• 1:24:59
  I would not want to be in the top 1% of the busiest people in the world. Oh, you went a different way with that. It took me a long time to figure out what I really want. Many, many years, I just thought I wanted to be super wealthy. And, you know, sometimes I thought maybe even famous. But asking myself that question over and over, what do I really, really want?
• 1:25:26
  I want time freedom. Time freedom is just as important as financial freedom to me, maybe more important. So, you know, I see people that are, you know, super high achievers, like the 0.001% people, and they're just nonstop.
• 1:25:42
  And I, I've come to grips with the realization that I really don't want that. I want to have a quiet and peaceful, happy, joyful life. And I don't want to grind my gears all the way to the grave. So that's who I wouldn't trade places with. We've been going at it for a little over an hour and a half. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you feel compelled to share? Yeah.
• 1:26:11
  You've done a great job. So you're an easy guy. This is a wonderful interview. It's like looking into a mirror. I love it. So any parting words? Just, yeah. You know, from my heart to everybody that's out there, you know, I know Kelly well enough. He's not doing this to make money. I've got plenty of other ways to make tons of money.
• 1:26:40
  We're literally doing this because we love people and we want to see you do better. And we want to see you live a life that you enjoy, full of peace, full of family. So again, it doesn't have to be Kelly's program, my program, but take your life seriously.
• 1:26:58
  Get to a place where you're like, you know what, I'm going to design my life in a certain way so that I can enjoy everything that it has to offer. And I think we've been several times, both Kelly and I have been saying, make a decision. Everything starts with a decision. As soon as you can make it and be serious about it, commit to it, your life's already starting to change. Chris, I want to leave with one last thing. And it's
• 1:27:22
  I'm going to tell you about you. And it's very easy because you're me or I'm you. You are a beautiful person, both inside and out. You're kind. Your heart is gigantic.
• 1:27:36
  I'm grateful that you're in my life and I love you very, very much. And I know, you know, if there's anything ever I can ever do, the answer is always yes. And I look forward to whatever God puts for us to do, because we're going to do some things together and I appreciate you very much. And there are no coincidences. Thanks for being hard in life, dude. Thank you so much. This has been a phenomenal interview and, uh, you know, I feel the same dude. We've,
• 1:28:02
  We don't know each other all that well, but somehow we know each other really, really well. Thank you, brother. Good stuff.
• 1:28:15
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.