Speaker 1: 0:00

Yeah, All right guys. Welcome to Episode Four of its personal and entrepreneurs podcast. We have an extra special guest with us today Extra, Extra, extra special Chris Cumbie, our business coach, personal friend, mentor, if you will. We're really happy to have you on, chris.

Speaker 3: 0:40

I'm excited to be here because I think, if we roll back the clock a little bit, we talked about a podcast, right, absolutely. So the fact that you guys are actually doing it, you know, I mean. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Yeah For doing that and I'll be honest, like when you first brought it up, it seemed like you know we're not going to do that. Daunting.

Speaker 4: 1:00

Uncomfortable. Yeah, uncomfortable, that's a good word.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Mike was super excited about it, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:06

Crazy Mike.

Speaker 3: 1:07

Crazy Mike.

Speaker 2: 1:08

Let's go, baby.

Speaker 3: 1:09

Let's go. I mean, listen, I like to be encouraging to people. If you know you have to get out of your own, you know, comfort zone. Absolutely Nothing grows in the comfort zone. So being uncomfortable now four shows in and watching the reels and things that you guys have done or your team has done, it's just great to see. I can tell you, it excites me every time I see something new and you guys have done a show or you know I can click like or love on. You know the social media. That's good. I'm glad you guys are doing this because I think everybody should have a podcast, you know, to tell you the truth and you know it's a great medium.

Speaker 1: 1:42

It's still like to be completely honest, it's like still super uncomfortable Sometimes putting out there yourself talking or you're like am I, am I valid, am I, am I important enough to be telling people this information? But then every once in a while I'll get like a call or message from someone who's like hey, you know, that was pretty good, we really like it. You know, people seeing it out there. So that's right.

Speaker 1: 2:01

And the other thing that we talk about all the time, too, is it's like a creative outlet. This is the one thing that we do every month, that we have zero intention of trying to monetize, and we just do it for fun and to talk to people like you and talk about business. Yeah, it's a lot.

Speaker 3: 2:14

Listen, you know true potential. We all have one, and the fact that we talked about this before and probably some of the coaching sessions, you have to take action the fact that you guys took action created what a result. We're doing it, you're seeing it. That result is giving you feedback. That feedback, it sounds, is getting you guys fired up and excited, or you wouldn't be on show four, right You'd be, like no, I'm done, that was fun, I tried it, but you invest it.

Speaker 3: 2:44

You guys have taken the time and effort to. You know, figure out where it's going to fit in to your schedule. We're all busy. It's not easy to you know. Get set up like this is a great setup as well. I mean that's the fun part is you guys, to your point, can be creative, and I think when we get all wrapped up in life we lose that creativity. And you know you think about as being a kid.

Speaker 3: 3:09

One of the most important things is having an imagination and some of the things that we do, you know we do. You know we do. You know somewhere along the line adults lose the imagination, and you know why we don't. We're. It's a God's gift.

Speaker 3: 3:24

You know to have an imagination of things and can imagine what my life is going to be like, what I can do, how I can help people or serve people or, you know, go out there and do things that you know are uncomfortable, and you know I can try things, and I think that that is where you can start getting a lot more things that start to happen for you. You start to meet new people, and what better way than having you know, like me today, a guest in many guests I'm sure you can line up that are going to bring value to you know, the people that you guys serve in your market as well. That sometimes is not relatable, but I think you just said it. You know people call you up and go hey, I needed to hear something like that today. Yeah, and that's encouraging.

Speaker 1: 4:08

And I think it's very cool too that you know every person we've had on the podcast up to this point, like we've had a conversation afterward about hey, you know, that's something, we're getting a lot from it. I guess I'll put it that way right, we're taking nuggets from everyone. We get in here who's higher level or doing something different than we're doing and can give us a tidbit, and we're taking and being able to put it into our business too. So it's like we're getting free consultative services.

Speaker 4: 4:34

I don't know if I'd call it free, but yeah.

Speaker 3: 4:39

But you listen, that's where you make connections with people and, to your point, you end up getting little things that can help you or, better yet, you can help others.

Speaker 4: 4:48

You know that's the whole point. Some of our guests are completely different avenues. You know restaurants, construction, business coach a lot of different. You know. Obviously, hopefully at some point in this we'll hear a little bit about what you've done, sure.

Speaker 3: 5:01

Well, you guys can ask me anything. This is open mic today.

Speaker 4: 5:05

But it's cool to take those to Kurt's point and bring them into what we do in our everyday business, even if they're doing it in completely different industries, for sure.

Speaker 1: 5:13

So yeah, to Andrew's point. I mean, we like to start our show off pretty much every time by asking whoever we have on you know what your background is a little bit about. You know your personal story, if you will, how you got to where you are, what you're working on right now, that kind of thing.

Speaker 3: 5:27

Well, I'll abbreviate, obviously, because we can spend all day on some of the things I've done. I feel like I've lived several lives and I think you know, through life it's a journey, right? My coach always told me the journey is the reward, and I try to hold on to that a lot because I realize sometimes it's not going to go as planned. But you know, upstairs, the man upstairs, god, has a plan for us and I think we just got to show up. And I think that's the biggest obstacle for a lot of people sometimes is they don't actually show up. You know, and what I mean, you know, it's not like they don't show up for work, but they don't show up for the things they want, and it's mainly because they don't know what they want. You know, that's what I try to help people with. So let me go back a little bit. You know I started way back when in accounting, actually of all places, because you know, when I was younger I was really good at math. So I figured well, why not do something that I'm good?

Speaker 1: 6:28

at. Did you get worse at math as you got older? Yes, because they teach math differently.

Speaker 3: 6:35

I'm still good with you, know certain things, but I'm not going to do. You know algebra.

Speaker 4: 6:42

The way they're teaching math. They're great, son. Math right now confuses me.

Speaker 3: 6:45

Sure, the way that they've changed it confuses me as well, the way that they're doing this whole block math thing. I'm like.

Speaker 4: 6:52

Alexa.

Speaker 3: 6:53

Yeah, that was four times four.

Speaker 3: 6:57

Exactly so. Accounting, you know, quickly learned that that was just really boring sitting at a desk. You know, for me, activity is just really important. I've always been active. I started wrestling when I was really young. Actually, before I should have started wrestling, I was nine. You know, you don't really start wrestling until you're a little bit older, but I started early.

Speaker 3: 7:21

I, you know I was always competitive, I think that you know, as a young kid, you know my parents kept me busy, which kept me out of trouble, and I think sports does that. I wrestled and I played soccer. So I had two seasons. One in the winter was my wrestling season, One in the summer, obviously because I lived up north. You can't play soccer north in the winter. However, that was my summer sport and you know that competitive nature, you know, boiled into wanting to know more. Like my imagination was wild when I was a kid, because I always wanted to, you know, learn about how you get stuff right.

Speaker 3: 8:00

I came from a humble family. My dad had a great job. He worked for the same company for 30 some odd years. It's kind of the thing they used to do back then. My mom was stay at home and she was amazing. So I had great parents. I have two siblings, you know, and we had a good life. We didn't have, you know, everything, but I got the things I needed, you know, and most of that was just, I think, a lot of love. You know, to tell you the truth, I got a lot of love from my parents and because of that I figured out how to, you know, use that in my own life and business and try to, you know, love more and hate less. And it led me to PepsiCo. Actually, of all places, I started at Pepsi really learning branding and marketing from one of the greatest, probably, branding and marketing companies in the world, just with their, you know, length of time being in business and selling soda water yeah consistency, something that I wasn't necessarily proud of.

Speaker 4: 8:59

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:00

Yeah, which led me to what would I be proud of going and doing, and it was a couple of things. You know. I sold a ton of soda water probably well over 400 million while I was there. Personally, I track all these things because I think it's important in life, especially if you're in business or sales particularly. You know my background business development, sales. You got to know the score.

Speaker 1: 9:25

Yeah, keep score.

Speaker 3: 9:26

Yeah, keep score. You know I had goals. You know I wanted to own Toronto, so we did. You know, and that's where I grew up. I'm Canadian, I'm now American as well, so I'm dual citizen. And you know, Pepsi taught me a lot about management style and, just, you know, being professional, you know, in every circumstance, and you know that rolled over into entrepreneurism and you know my entrepreneur world was when I left Pepsi and I realized I, you know, sold a lot of stuff but I wasn't making a lot of money.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 10:06

Rubber tree plant, a nice office and, you know, a decent salary and kind of a window.

Speaker 1: 10:14

You know, I kind of had to, you know, crank my head a tiny bit.

Speaker 4: 10:16

Yeah but perhaps you.

Speaker 3: 10:20

Pretty much. I mean, I was at the bottling company in Toronto. It's different now. I've got people that I still know there, but that led me into, you know, exploring a couple of you know ideas, and I didn't go too far, though. You know, it's just one day a lady came in the office and said hey, we're looking for someone who has some experience and he's a VP of sales. And I wasn't a VP of sales, but I, you know, I knew enough about sales that I could probably run a good team and I was confident walking in there. And I just, you know, brennan Mulkay, a good friend of mine now, you know, we met the very first day and he hired me and said let's go. It was a young company, he was probably doing about 200 million, but they were getting prepared for an IPO. So I participated in an IPO and the company grew, you know, to exponential couple billion very quickly, and that was exciting.

Speaker 3: 11:19

But again, I was, you know, in a situation where I was working for someone and you know, again, working for someone was great. I treated it, you know, more of an entrepreneur. You know I was creative. I, you know, took a lot of what I learned at a big corporation implemented it and now I was responsible for 200, you know some odd sales people across Canada in different offices that you know you learn communication really quickly and you have to be effective at it so that, you know, really opened up the door for me to exponential levels. I did really well, grew fast, sold a lot, made millions of dollars in commissions in my first, you know, year of going on, you know, in a new industry.

Speaker 3: 12:08

Now, keep in mind, the energy industry is massive, it's the biggest huge space, so it's very, you know, probably is much bigger than the real estate space, to tell the truth. And so I learned a lot from, you know, brennan and I carried on and built my own companies after that, with help, you know, and I think that that when you have a couple of really good mentors, of people that you can have around you and, you know, coach and give you ideas and keep you accountable and support you, you know, always be encouraging. I believe in that. Help people, you know, get there, don't, you know? You know pull them back because you know we all have those people around us. When you tell them, you know you're going to do something they want, you know they, I think they have good intentions for you, but you know, they know you from what you do now, not necessarily what, you want to change what you want to do.

Speaker 3: 13:08

Right. So I went nuts in the energy industry. We built three companies. I sold one in 2009. I always say I sold my company and bought a job, which was really the circumstance back then Didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to.

Speaker 3: 13:26

You know, the money was fine but I still didn't feel, you know, completely fulfilled and so I branched out after energy. You know I went after that and built a small little energy consulting company fairly quickly, because it was what I knew how to do. It was easy for me to implement. I know how to prospect, I know how to close people, I know how to provide value. You know, in anything I work on, you know, that's essentially. You know, my skill sets and business development has always been, you know, I'm a deal guy, I make deals. So after that I had this urge to, you know, really write a book and have a legacy. So I wrote, like on the I guess maybe Renaissance man does. You know I hand wrote a book, you know, for my child. He was 18. Yeah, I hand wrote it the first six chapters.

Speaker 1: 14:16

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 3: 14:18

Because I wanted to give my son, who was turning 18, which he could not appreciate at the time Because, you know, he was into video games and all the other things and I gave him a handwritten book, but I think the fundamentals were really important in there and that's really what I wanted to do is provide my children with a little bit of a you know playbook, and you know, in fact, it's called the success playbook for a reason. And you know, I have a couple of pillars that are really important in that book that I think is appropriate and probably in you know, for anybody. Really, you know, it's hard to say I wrote the book for everybody, but yeah, I think that I wrote the book for entrepreneurs, salespeople, people that are commissioned. I don't confuse accomplishment with activity.

Speaker 4: 15:05

Yeah, I just don't you can make yourself stay busy.

Speaker 1: 15:09

Right. Nothing makes you think like that more than being on a commission based base structure.

Speaker 3: 15:16

Right, and I learned not to use it, just being busy is not the finish line. Listen, I can move this room around 100 times. It's not going to change the room.

Speaker 4: 15:26

It's still a 10 by 10.

Speaker 3: 15:27

Right, so what I mean by that is, if I have an idea and I really want to accomplish something in this room, I'll knock that wall down. Yeah Right, change it. So I don't confuse the activity that I do with accomplishment, and I think that that really helped me tremendously get results in my life. And you know, when you're up against the wall and you got to make things happen, you have to bet on yourself. And that's really another thing that I learned through coach, my coaches, wanting to be coaching people and really take a lot of what I've learned.

Speaker 3: 16:01

And I was around a lot of wealthy people, you know, I got a lot of experience, you know, being around, you know even my current partners and things like that of real wealth, and it opened my eyes to how I can take a lot of those. Let's call them fundamentals, or the function, not the form, right? I always try to focus on the function of things, so the form can be all kinds of things. As a result, I think it's the function and for me it was very much about finding, you know, some patterns.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:33

And you know you can rely on those things to go and, you know, really change any trajectory in your life. And because I wasn't afraid and I'm introverted, you know, for the most part I come out of my shell, if you want, when I know what I'm doing and I'm really skillful at that. So, yeah, confidence, you know, knowing that I understand my product, my service, I can articulate it in a way that's going to help hopefully solve a person's problem, that I'm, you know, working with. If not, I'm not going to do business with people. That's just the way I operate. Yeah, I don't look for, you know, just quick hits. I look for relationship and then helping people through that. So I mean, my background has all been around sales, business development, building companies, and now it's been in coaching, advisory and I work with some, you know, amazing people in that environment.

Speaker 1: 17:28

And how did you initially get into doing the coaching and advisory stuff? What was the catalyst to that that made you want to like make a full switch to doing that?

Speaker 3: 17:35

I think, like anything, you know, I wasn't confident in it yet, so I had to balance, have a bit of a balancing act. The good thing is, in the energy business I created residual. Yeah, you know I'm a big fan of residual income, you know, and I also am a big fan of multiple streams of income because you know things can dry up, things change industries, change environment, politics, geopolitical so I've always been very cognizant of, you know, improving my skill sets and you know I talk about that a lot. I still train myself to myself.

Speaker 4: 18:14

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:15

I just do it in front of the mirror.

Speaker 4: 18:17

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 18:18

I try to get sharp. I try to learn from a lot of people around me. The good thing is, a couple years back I was gonna actually write a book and, you know, Include a lot of other top sales guys. You know Jerry a cuff, you know Mike Hunter. You know there's a few others. Yeah, you know that don't come to mind right now, but these are the guys that you know are leaders in sales. So I always love to learn from people that lead in that area, because I don't know everything. I know I don't know what I don't know.

Speaker 3: 18:48

Yeah and I think everybody needs to realize that. You know we have that and I never be asked anybody about anything. You know, I wanted to make sure if I don't know the answers, I'm gonna find out who does and I'll come back and you know, if I can help them, I will. Yeah, I don't be asked just to try to get through a door. So, sales, I knew immediately that I can help people because, yeah, I've been doing it. I've done, you know, close to 800 million in personal sales myself.

Speaker 3: 19:18

I Understand how to deal with people. I understand that I don't also, you know, don't hold on to one deal. You got to have multiple deals in the, in the, in the works, and if you don't, you got to work on your prospecting. You got to have a pipeline that you can be confident in and you have to have a, you know, know the score and know when things potentially could happen and have a bit of a backup plan if it doesn't, you know, be able to pivot. I love that word because it's a forward-moving action. I never idled, I just always made another move. So I had, you know, this inclination that I'm gonna write a book. So I did. And when I tell people, I'm gonna do something. That's one thing that happens. I'm gonna do it.

Speaker 4: 19:58

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:59

So I think that's important to have the confidence in yourself. And there's, you know, something that we, you know, talked about and I taught you guys a little bit of the sales cycle, or success loop, if you want to call it. You know we all have things that are gonna happen to us and we're all gonna beat ourselves down. No one is unscathed facts through that, you know, I don't care who it is. You know so many Very successful people talk about the imposter syndrome, it. That just means they're beating themselves up, you know, and they and they bring themselves down. But the most important thing is, I think, what clears a lot of that up is making sure you know what you want. And here's the, the pillar in my book that I, that I taught my my kids be careful.

Speaker 3: 20:43

He listened to yeah listen twice From what the words are being said and then who it's being you know, said by, said by and and it's really good advice, it's so it's so important to you know, hone in on that and and then make some decisions not based on you know, I try to always remove fear because, listen, wanting and not having there's a very thin line.

Speaker 3: 21:08

Unfortunately, as humans, because we're not programmed or taught, yeah, we tend to go on not having, and how the mind works is, if you're focused on not having, it's likely not gonna happen. So I always really, you know, pay attention to that fine line, knowing I don't have the things in my life that I want, but it's just a matter of the activity, being consistent to lead right with with the things that you know will be maybe a result, and and I say maybe because sometimes they don't work out. But I think that that's whole point about true potential is, when you make a move, there's a result and unfortunately, with a lot of people, the result could be negative and therefore they never get to their true potential because they just get shut down, not by others, by themselves.

Speaker 2: 21:56

Well, I think you said earlier a little bit about confidence. The key element of any entrepreneurial adventure or venture is making that first step. We don't gain true confidence until we have that competence and you can't gain competence until you learn, whether that's from others or from your own failures, your own doings. Just get started, make that move, like you just expressed, in the right direction. Sooner or later you're going to learn what you need to learn if you continue to pursue that venture.

Speaker 3: 22:31

Feedback's important. You have to have feedback and if you don't do anything, you're not going to get any feedback.

Speaker 1: 22:36

Yeah, we were talking not that long ago and you said something that I repeat here all the time, which is stress is really just a result of an action. I just remind myself all that time. If I'm stressed because I don't have a pipeline or a deal or we don't have something closing, it's like, okay, well, what have I done about it? But if you go in the room and you cold call for two hours, if you work on a marketing campaign and actually pay for it and do it, you go to that event and talk to someone. As long as we're taking steps and working and being actionable, I don't feel so stressed. And then the other big thing too, going back to just conversations that we've had or an impact that you've had on us here too, is I go all the way back to like I was at a pretty bad place when I came to your event level up last year.

Speaker 1: 23:29

I knew that I wanted to continue on my entrepreneurship journey. I knew I had relative skill sets, but I think a lot of it was honestly inactivity. I knew kind of what needed to be edited, what else I wanted to focus on. But I had some conversations with you and Dave Clare and Dave had a conference call with me when he went back to Australia and he said you need to focus on making sole decisions, not ego decisions. Don't do something because it makes you feel important or you think it's what everybody wants you to do, or you think you'll make money from it. Start focusing on segments of business that feel good to you, that you want to figure out more about with people, that you want to figure it out with.

Speaker 3: 24:10

Because otherwise you'll be unfulfilled. You can make a lot of money and be, you're still going to look for more or something else it made me take that pause and think, like, what do we really want to build here?

Speaker 1: 24:19

And I went through several different things before we arrived on what we're really working on Came up with marketing and wrote out plans for several different things, but when we arrived here it was full send because I had been given the confidence through you coming and coaching us keeping on track to has been huge, because this journey is hard to do without a third party saying, hey, get your shit together. It's a bit of a moderator's shit together.

Speaker 3: 24:44

Well, I mean, we all need to bounce ideas and things and, quite frankly we talked about this, kurt that when you're leading, we don't always have people that we can talk to, unless you have a coach or someone that can mentor and can understand things outside of your sphere of influence and the people that you're working with. We can't always, or we shouldn't actually always bring our dirty laundry to the table.

Speaker 1: 25:16

It just creates a bad culture and cultures, everything and where you work, yeah, and I don't know about you guys, but that's been a realization for me too, how we show up here for each other and communicate with each other, even when we're not perfect at it Definitely not perfect at it but I've seen a shift in all of us of how we come here with even our personal issues or an issue that pops up, and how we communicate and deal with each other, which changes our ability to move forward and do better business, honestly.

Speaker 2: 25:46

You hit on something earlier and it just resonates with me the greatest power you have is to give your power away, and that multiplies your influence in business, your personal life, but it makes you stronger, and I think the way that I learned the most is by teaching others or by helping others, and that's really the most rewarding for me is to see somebody empowered, educated and then move on to be successful.

Speaker 3: 26:17

Brian Tracy when I had an interview with him, and if you don't know Brian Tracy, he's one of the greatest speakers in the world as well as sales.

Speaker 3: 26:27

But he always said you got to learn and teach, learn and teach, learn and teach. I like to synthesize and I think when you synthesize complicated things to explain and help people understand how it is, that you can take a complicated subject line and you can really synthesize and figure out what it is going to do for them is a good characteristic of a great salesperson, because there's so many things that can complicate and you can get into deep dive, but I like to be able to take all those things and just synthesize and get to the point and have a process to be able to do that with people. Brian.

Speaker 1: 27:02

Tracy, yeah, yeah, no, I agree. And honestly, going back to the event that you had last year, like Jeff talked a lot about that at that event too, and just Jeff Hoffman, yeah, like you know, just try stuff. He was like it doesn't matter, you know, and we all still now we deal with, you know, people saying you know, don't do that or that doesn't make sense, or you know that's not how things are done in this industry or whatever it is. And but Jeff, jeff went, even when I sat there and talked to him, you know, graciously, very human, easy to have a conversation.

Speaker 2: 27:32

Yeah, I feel like you know, just try stuff.

Speaker 1: 27:34

Who cares what other people say? People said I couldn't, you know, build a travel company? I did that. People said I couldn't, you know, be a music producer? I did that. People said I couldn't make movies I did that, you know. And he's still doing that stuff even now. So it just, you just. And it's like this podcast, right Like we. It sounded like a far reaching idea or something that some people might think is, you know, stupid or not a good thing to spend your time on. But we're like we want to do it and we just started doing it and we're getting better at it and just kind of comes together.

Speaker 1: 28:01

Right, you just got to start doing stuff.

Speaker 3: 28:03

Well, you have to. You got I mean, there's so much power in the start. I'll tell you that you know, a year from now or two years from now, you stay consistent with the podcast, it's going to reach more people. There are going to be things that happen that someone is watching and it's going to be in contact with you. It happens every single time. Yeah, I've started my podcast. I built relationships through having podcasts. I think everybody should have a podcast in their you know business. To tell you the truth, whether you interview or you're just expressing some of your own thoughts.

Speaker 4: 28:32

It's just a level of transparency, yeah, I mean, in today's world of seeing the person you're talking to and looking them up on Facebook, instagram, x, whatever platform. I mean this is just another avenue to just say look, they're real people, they have real conversations, they do real things and it's.

Speaker 3: 28:48

We can get to know them a little bit yeah.

Speaker 4: 28:50

You get to hear kind of how they see things what their? Viewpoint is and you know kind of the things that they find important Right.

Speaker 3: 28:57

It's uncomfortable.

Speaker 4: 28:58

I mean, we've talked about that, it gets easier, it gets better and, like you just mentioned, at some point which I think we've already had people reach out about it, and I know I have and he has but at some point something tangible will come from this and we'll look back at it and we'll say man, it's uncomfortable as it was, look what it got us.

Speaker 1: 29:15

Yeah, look where it took us. And the best part about it, though, is, like I said earlier. You know, we get to talk to people who have tons of knowledge and information that impart wisdom on our business. So, you know, twice a month, we get to talk to people smarter than ourselves and ask them questions about how they do things and how they see things, and then take the knowledge and implement it ourselves.

Speaker 3: 29:36

It's a network effect. You know building away that superpower.

Speaker 2: 29:40

Every individual has a superpower. Whatever that is a knowledge base and a genius mindset. I agree and to spread that wealth is so important yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:52

So we've obviously already talked about level up events.

Speaker 3: 29:56

Yeah, already yeah, but we mentioned a little bit.

Speaker 1: 29:59

A little bit, yeah, but why don't you tell us a little bit about what's to come, what it is and what's to come and talk about that?

Speaker 3: 30:05

Well, again, like anything, I used to do, a lot of, you know, smaller events, more mastermind, putting together some you know people in a room that can help each other. But what I really wanted to do last year, 2023, was and we could say that now officially is, you know, it's part of me, you know leveling up, and it just hit me one day when I was driving along and I said, you know what it's time to F and level up, and it just that was it.

Speaker 3: 30:34

It's time to be uncomfortable, exactly, and we, you know you can't do everything on your own, but I feel like, you know, it's just a chance for me to just press. You know, I don't even remember how I did it. You know I said it right at the beginning of everything and I do this even more now. It's God's plan. You know I'm just participating and I took the assignment and I went in it with full faith that, you know, it was going to have a result and the result was favorable and it was everything that I, you know, wanted to happen, and more.

Speaker 1: 31:08

And you know, in that, just going back to what you just said, it's kind of funny because you know I've shared this with you before, but like I was in a place of difficulty and you know, my wife saw the ad for the event which you, literally, I think you started putting ads up like 20 days before the event, Like it was all like very down to the bottom right.

Speaker 1: 31:26

So, like just randomly, and she saw was like, hey, you should go to this, you know. And I was like I don't know if I really want to spend like money on that right now, Like I've got a restaurant that's not working out.

Speaker 2: 31:36

You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 31:37

And she was like, just pay for it, go to it so you know, I went and you know obviously it turned out to be.

Speaker 1: 31:43

I met a lot of people that are huge Jeff Hoffman, dave Claire, people who have had like a pretty big impact on me in the last year. Huge impact really. But you mentioned in there you said you know it's all part of God's plan to a degree, and I lead on that more. But it's funny because in that transition that's been a big part of how things we've talked to about each other too. That's right, and I've really grown in that direction and my faith through meeting you as well, not just business. So it is cool how things that are unsuspecting in that degree work out sometimes too.

Speaker 3: 32:15

We need, you know we need to have that support. So I mean, level up was an opportunity to build something in the community, build a community around the beach here and have entrepreneurs connect with each other, and the purpose was, you know, help level up anybody that came to it. You know, an idea, a start to something. We built a relationship. I came and helped you guys, you know, through coaching. We still talk a lot and you know I'm on your podcast, which you know you look at. That's just.

Speaker 3: 32:47

You know one person, you know, because you guys weren't at the event, but one person that we affected that did something, and you know it's. Obviously many others have the exact you know similar experience, so we're going to do it again, yeah. I'm excited we're going to do it again 2024. We're dialing in on. You know the date, but it'll probably be April, the end of April, beginning of May, just contracting the space right now here in Destin, florida, or not here, but you know Destin.

Speaker 1: 33:17

Florida just down the road.

Speaker 3: 33:20

But you know, to help people in the general area, come to something that would typically have to fly out and go to a different city, check something out in Vegas or Orlando or Atlanta or you know somewhere bigger than here and I felt like we can bring all the talent and people here.

Speaker 1: 33:38

It was absolutely equal level or better event than anything like that, but on the Emerald Coast, which was really cool.

Speaker 3: 33:44

Yeah, and I don't think people expect it a lot.

Speaker 1: 33:48

I did not expect what I got into. It was 10 times what I thought I was getting into.

Speaker 3: 33:52

Well then, if that's the case, then we've got to go 10 times more for level up 2024. And that's exactly what we're going to do is we're going to bring a couple of people back that were original speakers, but it's going to definitely have a different feel and I believe this year, for a lot of people, leadership and faith is something we can lean on. I've leaned on it and I feel, like you know, we got to lead ourselves and through doing that, people are going to, you know, start catching on and wanting to do that. So level up 2024 is leadership and faith based. We're going to have a lot around marketing, money mindset, obviously and you know our theme but I think that you know we have a different lineup of speakers this year. That's going to really impact a lot of people in a different way and you know, quite frankly, you learn from doing anything.

Speaker 3: 34:44

Your first time it was a beta. This time we can take all the data and start looking at hey, how do we do it a little bit differently? How can we have more networking? How can we have more time in between for people to connect? Absolutely, what kind of speakers can come in and help? You know, inspire people, because I don't believe anybody can motivate anybody. I believe that you get motivated yourself through inspiration, hearing stories, helping understand yourself a little bit better, by going through your own experiences. But you got to try stuff, you got to go out there, apply yourself, because really this is just time for your podcast.

Speaker 1: 35:25

It's time you're spending, yeah, and it's kind of like the precipice for like, when we sat down, decided what we wanted to be this to be about. It's very similar to what the value you can get from you know. An event like Level Up is is because everyone came there very transparently. Even you know someone who's been a CEO and founder of a billion dollar company stood there very transparently and told you about all the shit.

Speaker 3: 35:48

He failed at.

Speaker 4: 35:49

Absolutely and was like you feel like this is not what you see on the web now. No, no, you don't see the failures nowadays, which is, you know, obviously a big part of why we started this. You only see the.

Speaker 1: 36:01

You only see the pretty shiny stuff on the social media, there's all the content out there of, like you know, the editing this much and you don't only do this and that, and so it just gets exhausting right and you play the comparison game and get imposter syndrome to a degree about certain things and not, you don't know how to get to that, but are they even really at that?

Speaker 3: 36:20

Well, they tell you a lot of the you know outcome yeah, Not the journey, Not the journey.

Speaker 1: 36:24

And that you know I don't level up. Everyone was telling you the raw story about the journey and if you feel this way, that's valid. I felt that way. If people tell you this, that's that's valid. Ignore it.

Speaker 1: 36:34

You're not crazy, right? And? And you left there feeling validated to a degree. If you're a person who has a mind, who maybe works a little bit different, who stresses a little bit different, who strives for something a little bit different, and you do feel crazy on a day-to-day basis, I left there feeling, you know, validated to a degree and like, okay, just keep doing stuff, you're not crazy, you can't listen to all that all the time. And and and honestly, that was huge for me.

Speaker 4: 36:59

It allowed me to keep doing right.

Speaker 3: 37:01

For sure, if I, if I can, I'll share something for your audience that I think is really important, especially at the beginning of this year, and I and I assume we're going to you know air this rather shortly. You have to really answer five questions and if you can do this effectively, I think you can really start to make massive changes in your life. The number one question is you have to know what you want. You know. So, if I was to say it, what do I want? Question mark what do I want for my life? What do I want for my relationship? What do I want, you know, in my business, or you know, in in my work or my career? What do I want for my kids? You know, what do I want is a really important question that I think a lot of people don't actually spend the time to answer. They just go with emotions. They kind of have a feel of what they, you know, want in life, but it can easily change if something happens. You know, especially when negative things happen and they're going to happen. You know this. This world we live has adversity. There's tons of it. You got to learn how to be a problem solver and you got to learn how to communicate effectively. If you can do those two things, you can do well in life. But you got to know what you want.

Speaker 3: 38:14

The second question I think is really important is you got you know to also ask the question why do I want it? Like a lot of people don't even know why they're doing things, they just do. So I think it's really important to ask those two questions. But you know the rabbit. There's a deep rabbit hole to this as well, because we're emotional beings and I think that if we can help ourselves through controlling emotion and understanding ourselves better because I'm a big believer in personal development is the greatest and best investment you'll ever make in your life. I don't care what's out there and you guys are in real estate. It's a great investment, but it's not the best one. It's just not. Stocks aren't the best investments. Yourself is the best investment.

Speaker 3: 38:59

And by going through these questions, I think and really understanding your emotional self is important, because we're feeling right. We're trying to chase a feeling. So the question number three would what feeling will I have when I get what I want? Because that's really what you're after is a feeling, absolutely. You know function and form right. Yeah, form could be something, but there's a function to life and I think that you really got to hone in on what that means for you. So, once you understand the feeling, you got to ask these two questions that go real deep, real deep and I encourage everybody in the audience to you know, listening and hear today to figure this out is why do I want that feeling? That's a. That's a different question that's a new question.

Speaker 3: 39:46

Yeah, you don't, you don't really sit on. Twitter.

Speaker 2: 39:49

Self validation.

Speaker 3: 39:51

You don't, you don't contemplate these things. So what do I want, why do I want it, what feeling will I have when I get it and why do I want that feeling? Okay, that's four questions, right? The fifth one is where, really, where the rubber meets the road, in my opinion, is because a lot of people, like I said, there's a thin line between wanting and having. Yeah, right, but this is the question that can clear a lot of that up and help people really understand themselves mostly and you know, again, some of the things that can happen to them if they really, you know, really contemplate and discern a little bit here. Why do I want it? You know what feeling will I get when I have it, but why is the feeling missing now? Right, and if you can answer that question, then I think it gives you a clear idea on where to put your focus and your emphasis. And I think, again, I'll just list them really quick what do I want, why do I want it, what feeling will I get when I have it, why do I want that feeling and why is the feeling missing now? And those five questions I call the bullet proof questions to live a really good life in business, you know relationship, family, kids, health, I mean there's.

Speaker 3: 41:04

These questions work for a lot of things If you're, you know, trying to discern or, you know, really contemplate life a little bit, or changes. What a great time to do that Great exercise. I'm doing devotions right now, on every day, and the number one thing and I'll bring this up for everybody to kind of think about if this is your last year to live, what are you gonna do? It's it, this is your last year to live. What are you gonna do? Now? Hopefully you live a long time and it's way beyond that but if it was really and some people are faced with this, unfortunately in life, but I I don't put myself in a morbid situation or thinking about this, but I like that. You know, just really show up. We talked about that earlier, even before the podcast is Showing up like, what are you gonna show up and do this year? What do you really want to? You know, accomplish and just Really go do it. And you know I'm gonna go do it, get shit kind of done. That guy Like no one's gonna do it for you.

Speaker 4: 42:04

Yeah nope.

Speaker 3: 42:05

So you got to put the effort in, you got to change stuff where it's not gonna ever happen, and that's the only way you're gonna really get. What you want in life is to change yeah yeah, it's like you.

Speaker 1: 42:16

You posed a question to all of us not that long ago when we were in a coaching session. Like you know, if, how would you feel if I gave you ten million dollars? You know, like right now, how would you feel? And then, and then you were like but would you take it if you were dead tomorrow? Would you still want the ten million dollars? Mm-hmm, and we were like heck, no, we'd rather be a lot tomorrow, you know, and you were like then, why, why don't you have that same energy Today, just being alive, than if I offered you that ten million dollars? And it sounds cheesy, but I mean, it's kind of, it's true, it's the truth. You got to bring that, that thankfulness and gratitude and energy, to life every day, no matter what the situation is yeah, definitely yeah.

Speaker 3: 42:54

So thin line, yeah, it's a very thin line, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, agreed.

Speaker 1: 43:01

Yeah, I think you know obviously level up 2024. We're all very excited to be there and be a part of it.

Speaker 4: 43:07

I did about that.

Speaker 1: 43:08

I'm very excited that you're having another one. I'm sure it's gonna be way bigger.

Speaker 3: 43:13

We like to ask it's gonna be way bigger. I got a level it up, I mean yeah. It wouldn't be Right if I didn't, for no, and I'm excited for these guys to come because it's really.

Speaker 1: 43:23

It's really one of those things. Honestly, I know I they're sick of me talking about it, because I remember the energy it brought you back.

Speaker 4: 43:30

With, though, I mean with where we were at with where we were at in that point in time.

Speaker 1: 43:35

I was in a bad place, I mean, I remember.

Speaker 4: 43:38

Professionally, the things we were dealing with, the stresses we had, and I mean I remember when he left to go to that for a couple of days and when he came back, I mean that. That I mean it was completely different energy from those, just those two and a half days.

Speaker 2: 43:48

Yeah, we met. We met at the restaurant to talk about this opportunity two weeks after and I was in those, so there. Yeah, so vivid in his mind and he was so vibrant in his record, yeah, remembering the conversations and and the education he received from all these individuals the best part about it.

Speaker 4: 44:06

You know that he took all of that, but the scenario at that point had not changed yet. We were still in that bad situation. Sure, but his understanding and the way that we worked through it and and just the whole mindset after that was, I mean, it was a completely different it was for the change that we are living at this point.

Speaker 1: 44:26

Like even me like my intention, like Mike had reached out to me. We talked about her be a little bit and all those things, and then I was like my intention, because of where my mindset was, was like we're gonna add that to our business. I'm gonna just go and talk to him, figure out a way for him to come work for us.

Speaker 2: 44:42

Like and I honestly came very intense ago.

Speaker 4: 44:44

I probably wouldn't have had that conversation, but I, that's just where my mind everything became very, very intentional to get to the Result of, like those five questions you just listed off a minute, yeah, sure.

Speaker 2: 44:56

But I think every man's. Why? Well, a lot of man's. Why is we all want to leave a legacy?

Speaker 2: 45:02

I know our namesake, whether it's our kids, our business enterprise. We want our lives to have purpose and impact. An impact level up helps us do that. You know these conversations, these podcasts, you know interacting with people of influence and knowledge Is us, is a superpower. Absolutely, just give your superpower away. Help enough people to get what they want in this life. You'll get what you want. Yeah, but it's also that the the joy of the journey. Yeah, 100 makes the journey so much more Exciting and powerful.

Speaker 3: 45:35

Well, thorough says. You know, men live a quiet, desperation, and never seen my song, yeah.

Speaker 3: 45:43

I think it's really important and I and I obviously summarized that or abbreviated that a tiny bit, but I think it's really important for people to sing their song. You, we all, have something inside of ourselves and I'm just, you know, a lot more overt in my faith and no problem talking about the fact that you know, god and Jesus play a huge role in everything I do and me to. I make decisions based on you know what that assignment is, even though I might not understand it. I just have to go and, you know, show up, and I'm sure someone on the other end is there and it. It seems to always be the case. I pray more than I worry and I try to, you know, really wake up with some intention. We talked to you know, you talked about that, andrew. I pray more than you worry. Yes, that's deep, yeah.

Speaker 4: 46:38

I think a lot of people, including myself, could probably get better at that.

Speaker 3: 46:42

Sure, sure 100 outcome.

Speaker 4: 46:45

You want work for the outcome you have some intention. Yeah, have some intention and that's pray more than you worry.

Speaker 2: 46:51

That's the prayer also helps you alleviate that stress and it puts those worries in a box that you don't have to mess with anymore. He's messing with the box, he's got the box. You just have to focus on the yeah, on the gold, the why, you know, be that piece of clay To be molded that he's asking you to be is just surrender it all to him and he will guide you.

Speaker 3: 47:14

He will give you I'll give a great plug on that as well. Absolutely. John Gordon wrote a great book, the one truth, just reason, and if you haven't read it you should, because it'll talk about the fact that you know everybody has pretty good intention they want in their lives. We all have a positive feeling of what we want. Unfortunate double plays, and you know doubt and fear. And if you know, you really think about it. If you want something positive in your life and we live in, you know, in a, in a reality of life as well, you know, as well as spiritual. But if you want and I think everybody wants something positive in their lives, I really do I just truly believe that Everybody wants something positive in their lives. So where does the negative thought come from? You know, yeah.

Speaker 4: 48:07

And it plays in the devil.

Speaker 3: 48:09

It plays in the spiritual world. So there's that doubt and fear. Doubt and fear will turn into what Lack of action. I mean it'll turn into a distraction, Right Confide in things like distractions. Listen if the devil can't make you bad, he's going to make you busy. Yeah, so I'm just a big, it's a good one. You know I'm just a big believer that I want good things to happen, and if a negative thought comes, it's not mine. So I have the power and the ability to recognize it now.

Speaker 3: 48:42

And it takes time and it takes a lot of practice. Discernment it's valid Discernment. You have to just sort of look through and think that, OK, if I'm going to do this, it's like your podcast. If you start the podcast with this intention that it's going to not be something, that's going to be positive why, you know where did that?

Speaker 3: 48:59

come from. Yeah, like that's not what you want. So, therefore, it's the doubt and fear where people get hung up and they don't actually do anything outside of that because they're crippled or they get distracted and it takes them away from the consistency. If they just showed up every day consistently and long enough. The one thing that most people don't do is they don't do things long enough.

Speaker 1: 49:25

Yeah, and then we have conversations about that all the time. I mean, listen, you're talking to a roomful of people who I would generally categorize, all three of us to varying different degrees, but alpha male salespeople, like you know, don't love doing tasks, but a lot of what we do requires a lot of admin work. Right, because we're not a big company, we're a small company. If we don't do it, it doesn't get done. But, like, sometimes you know that is a recipe for impatient people, and so when we don't have an instant result, sometimes it's pretty frustrating and we're pretty hard on ourselves, which you're aware of because you've been our business coach. But when we really look over the long term of, like, from start to finish, and you actually sit here which we've done recently and reflect on everything that we've done, it makes you realize, yeah, the long term is where it's at.

Speaker 3: 50:11

You got to keep sticking with it. Listen you do the small things. That's build confidence. It really does.

Speaker 1: 50:21

I actually had a manager when I worked at Aspen Dental and he used to always say small wins every day. If you get one small win every day, just a small win, that adds up to one huge win at the end of the year. So if you do that every year and you look at your business in those terms, go get a small win today and you build them up into one big win. You'll have exponential growth over your book of business and I became honestly very successful working there just off of that one little principle.

Speaker 3: 50:51

Make your bed, make your bed every morning. That's a small win and it creates a compounding effect, because I believe you got to win the day every day. And if you're not winning the day every day, you got to figure out how you got to know the score. And you very aware that I play games. I play games with life, gamification, gamify your life a little bit. Figure out how you can bring a game, because why do people play games? Why do we play a game? To win, to win what else? It's exciting.

Speaker 2: 51:23

It's interesting, it's fun yeah.

Speaker 3: 51:25

Fun and win. Who doesn't want that in their lives, right? Who doesn't want fun and winning in their lives?

Speaker 4: 51:32

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 51:33

So you got to show up, and I'm a big believer that if you gamify in a way that gives you that reward, that push, when you don't want to do something, especially tasks, little things, I mean start off making your bed, and then that creates momentum, by the end of the day you can have so many things you can look back on and say, wow, I accomplished some stuff today, and even if it's just making your bed, by the way.

Speaker 2: 52:00

But it's that little mini euphoria that sets the tone for your whole life. Absolutely, it's awesome.

Speaker 1: 52:08

So we always like to end with one question. Sure, you've already dropped a lot of knowledge, but we like to ask if there's a brief one or two, three sentence thought that, whether it's business or personal, one quick message that you would just want to leave with everyone that's listening that you think is like the one message you would want to leave with everyone. What would that be?

Speaker 3: 52:35

Well, it's pretty easy for me. I just love to encourage people, so get around people that are encouraging, get into a better environment. It's so important to have people around you. And if you can step back right now today and say to yourself am I in an environment for growth or not? If you're not in that environment, then go find the environment, come to level up. That'll be a good start.

Speaker 1: 53:04

But there's a little plug for you.

Speaker 3: 53:06

But I think, just get into a good environment, get around people that are encouraging, that are supportive, that you can talk to and that can open up maybe some ideas in your life. So I think it's really important. I'll leave people with that because we're at the beginning of the year. I think it's a great time for people to assess life a little bit and understand or ask the question what do you want at the end of this year? Where are you going to be? And it has to be somewhere different and it has to be somewhere higher up. You've got to have a new level. It's like playing the video game you have to get through this level to get to the next one. And what are you going to do through this year to really set yourself up to win, and that's a big one. Set yourself up to win. Yeah, are you in the?

Speaker 4: 53:51

right circle to get to that level.

Speaker 3: 53:53

A lot of people when they write or think about things. Most people don't write goals Number. One thing you have to do is write down your goal.

Speaker 2: 54:01

You've got to know what you want. Put it on paper.

Speaker 3: 54:03

Put it on paper, put it on your mind, put a belief around that it's going to happen. But mostly, set yourself up to win and be realistic about it as well. A lot of people say I want $10 million by the end of the year, but they have no idea how they're going to make that happen. Yeah, you can win the lottery, you could get lucky. That is the truth. But I think the best thing to do is just set yourself up with realistic goals. Make sure that at the end of the month you have some reflection. Did I move the needle? If I didn't, ok, what do I need to do to make changes?

Speaker 3: 54:38

Because if you don't make the change, it's going to be exactly the same, and there are many people that are probably waking up today that can look back one year from now and nothing has changed.

Speaker 1: 54:49

Yeah, 100% so.

Speaker 3: 54:51

I think it's really important and will end on a reassessor environment that people you're hanging out with. The conversation is much different with winners, believe me. Yeah, bags OK. So you have to have a winning mindset and you have to consider yourself as a winner and you have to go do the things that are going to help you be a winner, and that can be just small things as well, and you don't have to boil the ocean to have things happen in your life.

Speaker 2: 55:18

The first step is come to level up. Ignite your superpower. There you go, absorb the superpower of everybody else that's there.

Speaker 3: 55:25

Well, we'll put that into the beginning of second quarter, I guess because that'll be. April. But right now definitely yeah, I want you to just get it. Just do some discerning.

Speaker 4: 55:38

Make sure by the time we get to level up, you've got yourself in the right circle.

Speaker 3: 55:42

Well, maybe the mindset, so then you can level up yeah just come to level up with the mindset that things are going to change for you, because that's a really important part.

Speaker 1: 55:51

Agreed. Well, we're super, super excited to be able to get to be a small part and level up.

Speaker 3: 55:56

Yeah, you guys are going to exhibit and be part of it, and we'll find ways that you guys can interact with the audience as well, for sure.

Speaker 1: 56:05

We really appreciate you being here and taking the time. We know you're a super busy guy. I appreciate being here, so I appreciate you taking the time and having a conversation with us and coming on the podcast Love it. That's it for episode four of its personal and entrepreneurs podcast and episode five coming soon. We have our real estate attorney and friend, brandon Berg, who's going to be on episode five, so make sure you guys look out for that one. And yeah, that's it Awesome. We appreciate you being here, Chris.

Speaker 4: 56:33

Thanks, Chris, yeah, thank you. Thank you everyone.

Speaker 3: 56:36

Absolutely. Let's go to 2024.

Speaker 4: 56:39

Big thanks.