From Rock Bottom to Outer Space: How To Turn Audacious Dreams Into Reality | With Christopher Huie

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[SPEAKER_00]: For some of us, the idea of making our dreams come true can feel as crazy as flying to outer space.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And for other of us, that's the very thing that we do make come true.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And in our story in our journey, whatever path it is that we take, there's going to be obstacles, but there's also going to be opportunity.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And the way that we view the world and the decisions that we make determine whether or not we actually can create the life that we believe were destined to

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[SPEAKER_00]: create.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And that involves persistence, that involves missions, that involves goals.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But most importantly, it involves you being willing to look at your dreams and saying, I'm going for that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's exactly what my friend.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And today's guest, Christopher, you he has done.

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[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, history is so out of this world, pun intended that I think that you will be shocked to hear what he has to say.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Christopher, my friend, thank you so much for being here.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the show.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Michael.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really excited to have a conversation today.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, man, your story is phenomenal.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It's outerworldly, okay, enough what the puns.

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[SPEAKER_00]: For those who don't know, tell us why anyone should listen to our conversation today.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What are they going to go?

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've had the most incredible like journey in my life and in my career and so much of it was unexpected and I feel like for so long I've had this like feeling inside of me that I was destined for something great.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't necessarily believe in destiny but just like I had this yearning to just like do big things in my life and in the world and not really knowing where to where to apply that energy or how to apply that don't you even figure out what that was.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think people should listen today because, you know, life is an adventure and we're all on it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think everyone has the ability to do things that are well beyond their imagination and well beyond their capacity.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And even better if you can do those things that it's in alignment that feels right to you and feels like you're you're working in your authenticity.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think you should listen today because I think my life, my story and some of my accomplishments that we'll probably get into today is prove that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I've had many hardships in my life.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was, I was, I was, I've been very lost.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I failed a bunch of times.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately, that led me to, you know, launching into outer space for free for my job.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I got paid to do it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's a great opportunity to just like learn from someone that you probably don't get to encounter experience wise very, very often.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my background is an engineering.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think basically in systemic frameworks.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we're to learn about like strategy, audacious schools, and how to turn vision into action.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so what's not jump over the fact that you went to outer space?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a really good place to start because I think people often don't understand the capacity that they have to actually do something wild.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, for me and it's very different when I was 18, I moved to New York City with 500 bucks in my pocket.

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[SPEAKER_00]: and no high school diploma and no plan at all.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember standing in time square, looking up at a billboard and time square, and thanking myself one day, I'm going to be on there, fast forward a bunch of years later, I've done it a couple of times, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was such an audacious goal to me as a child, because it felt so far out of the reach of norm, and I was just like, I'm going to go figure out how to make this happen.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What's talk about you being able to go to outer space, what that journey was like, how unique it was, and also the rarity of the accomplishment for you as well.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was a pretty amazing experience and I'd love to get into it, but it was an opportunity that came about kind of, I would say it was somewhat unexpected, but at the same time, it's something I've been working towards, and so, you know, I worked for a space flight company, a Virgin Galactic, you can see the logo behind me, and that's Richard Branson's

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[SPEAKER_01]: My background is in engineering and aerospace engineering, and I got an opportunity to work at Virgin Galactic, and so I took it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like her started in the helicopter industry, and somehow I ended up in the space industry.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, over time it became apparent that the company was going to be sending people to space as kind of like test customers.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I think of it like a soft opening of a restaurant, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: So as before, we opened the door to actual customers.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We want to make sure that the product is right, that we know how to serve the food, in this instance, but like know how to administer the mission appropriately.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was essentially one of the first test customers of the Virgin Galactic Space Flight Experience.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But when I started the company, I didn't know we were going to be doing that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was just there to like go engineer spaceships.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And that was an exciting journey in and of itself.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But then I realized that there was going to be this other opportunity.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And when you work for a space company, that plans to send people to space.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like your odds are pretty good, like outside of the space world.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's like a one in a million chance, maybe you'll ever get to go to space.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Assuming you're qualified.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, there's, that's a whole other, you know, track of like NASA astronauts.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I want to suborbital space flight with a commercial company.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very different experience.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But working at a space company like the odds are pretty good just if I was randomly selected, but I wasn't randomly selected, I was I was kind of positioned for it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So essentially through through my work and obviously a lot of it through my outreach work.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was doing well in my career as an aerospace engineer there and leading teams and leading initiatives and programs and projects.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but also a lot of my outreach work.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of put me on the radar of our leadership team even put me on the radar of like the Branson family and gave me some really unique opportunities to kind of learn and some small mastermind groups with with Richard.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I started a scholarship program, like all these things kind of like compounded to get me to this place where I was in a very I was shortlisted to be kind of chosen for this opportunity and when it came I was both excited and like not totally surprised like I was obviously surprising someone said, okay Chris would you like to go to space you just like yeah hold on let me ask my wife obviously I said yes, but

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[SPEAKER_01]: But I wasn't completely surprised because it was something that I had been working towards.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I was making moves in the company, maybe doing like the behind the scenes work to try and make myself marketable for that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But not obviously.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Just trying to do good work and hopefully people would see that good work.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that there's, you know, I think people hear that in that that feels like such a removal from day to day life or like, oh, you went out or space, you work for Virgin Galactic, you masterminded with with Richard and small groups of I'm sure highly successful and incredibly intelligent people, but that holds true in life and so many capacities.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have you seen crossover in the way that you've navigated that with maybe other successes in life as well?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, that's a good question.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I want to say yes, I mean, I wasn't pretending to be someone else to get to space.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always myself.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always just doing doing the thing.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I got some advice early on in my career as an engineer from one of the executives at the company I was working for.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And he had started at the bottom.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He's essentially started at this company as an engineer and over the course of like 15, 20 years, he rose to become the CEO.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And not just the CEO of the company, the CEO of the company that owned that company on the

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so, he never did he think he was going to become a CEO of a company.

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[SPEAKER_01]: He just wanted to do cool things and then do cool work.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so like the advice that he gave was, whatever you're working on, like do what the best that it can be done, and certainly do what the best that you can do it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But trying to do what the best that it can be done, no matter how small or how big that it is.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of internalize that and I think,

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[SPEAKER_01]: No matter what I do, whether I like it or not, I'm gonna try and do it the best that it can be done.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And hopefully, and some of this is hoping, some of this is intention.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully, I'm surrounded by good people and good people will notice good work.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're doing good work and you've prepared and you're surrounded by good people with your environment by choosing your environment, then opportunities will start to come to you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Some that maybe you were hoping for.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You're looking for and some of them will probably be on your capacity or beyond your imagination and they get offered up to you and like hey Would you like to try this new thing that you probably didn't know about but I think you'd be great at and so like thinking strategically about what those things you are you want to do can

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[SPEAKER_01]: Can help you be prepared for those opportunities when they come, but also just like knowing who you are and like truly what you want Like none of this not like oh, I want to I want to fast car.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I want a big house, but like true like down to like the emotional core of like what makes you happy.

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[SPEAKER_01]: What is your ambition come from what makes you passion driven You kind of steers you towards taking those right opportunities and so I think

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[SPEAKER_01]: In that way, in life, that's how I always operate, work hard, make sure I'm surrounded by good people, and then just see what happens.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But also, like, try and move in a direction for what I want to happen.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what led me to other opportunities outside of space.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But certainly, that was kind of my mode of operation as I worked towards my career path that ended up taking me to space.

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[SPEAKER_00]: When, you know, I think that a lot of people

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[SPEAKER_00]: a phrases for myself personally.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I did not really have dreams growing up about what life could look like.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was just completely in survival mode.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And as I became an adult, one of the things that I really struggled with, especially in my early 20s, was like, what do I do?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was working a corporate job making my way through the latter, which is almost impossible considering I don't even have a high school diploma.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm working for one of the biggest insurance companies, a Fortune 10 company in America, making more money than all of my friends, and I was miserable, man.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm like, you know me, like I'm covered in tattoos.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm wearing cackies to work with a polo shirt and sitting at this desk all day miserable.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, one of the really hard conversations, I think that you have to have with yourself is like, what do I really want?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Was this ideal of working on spaceships and doing and being an engineer?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Is that something that you always wanted?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Or did you choose that direction?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what I'm getting to is like, how do people know how to find their path?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the number one struggle people are having right now.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think for me one day, it was just kind of

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[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, think on broken.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This journey, this coaching, this podcasting, this speaking thing came to fruition, but I had just kind of floundered.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I tried other businesses.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I tried other things and I just kept being like, all right, it's in her somewhere.

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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of failures in there too, which we're going to talk about failure here in just a little bit.

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[SPEAKER_00]: but growing up did you have this notion of that's the direction I'm going or how did you find that because I think people are so lost right now and we hear a lot find your passion do what fulfills you but I don't know that people really know how to start

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a big question.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's I think it's about like experimentation.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So no, I didn't know what I wanted to do.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know what would my path, what my path was going to be.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's that's everyone.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, the is it the Muhammad Ali quote, like everyone has a plan to get punched in the face?

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so like you could either choose to have a plan and then just like accept that you're going to get punched in the face or or just don't bother having a plan and then maybe you won't get punched in the face.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of like a cash 22.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But anyways, the point I'm trying to make is,

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's about like starting and then iterating and being okay with with getting it wrong, and then being I'm still having with the motivation and that curiosity to iterate to try again.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So like when I was a kid like raised by a single mom in my sister and we didn't have a whole lot growing up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so, um, I spent a lot of time watching the Discovery Channel to be honest, that was kind of like my, I was a latch key kid staying at home, um, trying to, I was a good kid, but taking care of myself by like watching the Discovery Channel and so like that was the thing that created that first initial awareness that like airplanes were cool rocket ships were cool helicopters were cool.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I got just became infatuated with flying machines.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd say following your interests, following things that are interesting to you is certainly how you're going to be able to work in alignment and find that passion.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If it makes you smile and it makes you lose time kind of enter that flow state and you just love it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You can't get enough of it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's probably pretty close.

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[SPEAKER_01]: How you entertain yourself, I think, is a really good way to think about what you might be good at.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, whether you love writing in your journal, or where you love watching movies, or what types of movies, you start to think about, like, where do your passions lie?

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[SPEAKER_01]: But I think experimentation is big.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, I brought up that, you know, raised by a single mom, we were fairly poorly poor growing up is I didn't get a chance to do kind of like the standard American like, oh, yeah, do soccer.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now do hockey.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Now do ice skating or, you know, try all these different sports, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: These different activities.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think I basically held on to like that unmet curiosity until my adulthood.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I kind of manifested this mindset.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, like, I'm always willing to try new things.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Because I don't know if I'm good at it and I don't know if I'm bad at it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think keeping an openness to just try new things.

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[SPEAKER_01]: When I mentor college students, for instance, we talk about internships a lot.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's this preconceived notion that you have to take the right internships so you can get the perfect career after you graduate.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But I like to flip it on its head.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like an internship is even more valuable if you can just find and figure out what you don't want to do.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I think I might like this.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to try interning at that company because it's fairly low risk.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You're not hiring them, not being hired forever.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so like, how can you experiment with something in a low risk way to see if you like it or not?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like an internship is much easier than getting a full-time job and so like just try it and see if you like it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And then from there it's just like trying something and saying, I'm like being honest with yourself, is this good for me?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Do I like this or do I hate this?

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[SPEAKER_01]: I like it, but I don't love it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So that feels like a good next step.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's not my forever step, but it's a good next step.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, God.

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[SPEAKER_00]: No, I think that's a great point.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that as an adult, we don't get internships, and I think about that a lot and over the years, I've actually never shared this on the show.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Over the years, I have wet and got either part-time jobs doing things I think would be really fun and cool.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The pay is just trash, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like it doesn't make sense.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It actually cost me money to go do it, but it's like fulfilling.

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[SPEAKER_00]: because I wanted it to be exposed to that thing over there.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And it is interesting that once you like, out of college, the space for experimentation, almost doesn't exist.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think people realize, you know, you can go and be exposed to so many different things if you're willing to just put yourself out there.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that's really great advice.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, even as an adult, it's like,

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[SPEAKER_00]: you know like why stop learning and plus I mean there's so much research just continuing to learn things increases brain press plasticity there is a research that shows that people who learn instruments and new languages have a lower chance of Alzheimer's and dementia over the age of 45.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's like, that's crazy.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You could do that, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, my point is get out and experiment and learn and figure things out.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure I'm going to go into this a little bit more because you mentioned being raised by a single mother and being a large key kid.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You also said, but I was a good kid, and I heard that, and I'm like, oh, that's so cool.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was raised by single mother.

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[SPEAKER_00]: She had her own issues.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was a latch key kid, but I would not label myself as a good kid.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I went this direction where it was like, I was always in trouble, always fighting.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was out in the streets hustling, selling drugs.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was in a gang.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was getting, you know, running from the cops, just you just completely wild experience.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What I see in the research and then the data is that especially boys and boys of color which we are who are raised in single mother homes are 75% more likely to go to prison.

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[SPEAKER_00]: that's just reality.

16:23.419 --> 16:24.120
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, you know this.

16:24.280 --> 16:27.341
[SPEAKER_00]: I know this isn't like some thing we don't know about, right?

16:28.281 --> 16:31.102
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the sum extent, we are the minority.

16:31.362 --> 16:37.925
[SPEAKER_00]: One, I think for me, because I had fast feet, I never got busted, which is like not necessarily like a flex, but it is what it is, right?

16:38.045 --> 16:41.226
[SPEAKER_00]: When on your side, it feels like you had this path in this direction.

16:41.926 --> 16:43.967
[SPEAKER_00]: For for people who are listening right now,

16:44.847 --> 16:50.609
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they're the single mom or the single dad and they know, hey, times are hard, we're barely surviving.

16:50.709 --> 16:51.709
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm working two jobs.

16:51.789 --> 16:53.650
[SPEAKER_00]: My kid is spending a lot of time at home.

16:54.050 --> 16:55.570
[SPEAKER_00]: I want them to be successful.

16:55.590 --> 16:57.391
[SPEAKER_00]: I want them to learn to believe in this stuff.

16:57.431 --> 17:03.473
[SPEAKER_00]: I want them to kind of be able to rock down this path of creating a great life better than the life I have right now.

17:04.814 --> 17:06.696
[SPEAKER_00]: What was done with you in part on them?

17:06.736 --> 17:10.981
[SPEAKER_00]: Were there things that your mother taught you that really felt solidified?

17:11.021 --> 17:14.245
[SPEAKER_00]: Were there things that now is a father you're teaching your children?

17:14.686 --> 17:17.009
[SPEAKER_00]: But what advice would you give to people who are listening?

17:17.089 --> 17:18.471
[SPEAKER_00]: Or like, yeah, I know the stats.

17:18.571 --> 17:20.313
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want that for my little boy or girl.

17:22.088 --> 17:29.393
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, um, I didn't realize any of this at the time growing up, but like looking back at my childhood and kind of figuring out like what made me who I am and how did I get here?

17:29.833 --> 17:31.114
[SPEAKER_01]: I've spent some time thinking about that.

17:31.814 --> 17:40.400
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think to put it succinctly, I think, you know, the environment is like the the next parent whether that's a second parent or a third parent or a fourth or whatever year it is.

17:50.660 --> 18:09.372
[SPEAKER_01]: She put both my sister and I through private school and so like she basically sacrificed her own dreams all the things that she wanted to do and all of the funds and you know the hustle that she was working on went into my sister and I as education and it wasn't necessarily it was a Christian private school and I think that's important important to know

18:10.253 --> 18:20.901
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was thought as to because the school had like superior academics, they were pretty good, but honestly, some of the public schools probably had more academic opportunities than the private schools that I got to go to.

18:21.722 --> 18:23.043
[SPEAKER_01]: But the school I went to were pretty good.

18:24.584 --> 18:29.788
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd say I saw that sacrifice and that my mom was willing to do that for my sister-in-law.

18:30.148 --> 18:35.452
[SPEAKER_01]: But then I want to go back to like the environment really is the teacher and the environment is what cultivates

18:36.793 --> 18:41.417
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, the opportunities that you have, whether you, whether those are good things to get into, or bad things that you get into.

18:41.958 --> 18:54.008
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think my mom did that knowing the statistics of what it's like to be, you know, a little black kid in America is like, how do I keep my kids on the straight narrow, even when I'm not around?

18:54.448 --> 19:01.714
[SPEAKER_01]: And so as a result of being in this like private school community, I kind of had this built-in community that was like always there, even like was a

19:05.868 --> 19:09.589
[SPEAKER_01]: When I had to work, my mom had to work long shifts or multiple days in a row.

19:11.770 --> 19:20.433
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's just like how I stayed out of trouble is that the community I was in, like, didn't, didn't fester a lot of troubling things.

19:20.493 --> 19:25.455
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it was just a different pretty small knit community in that regard.

19:26.315 --> 19:26.475
[SPEAKER_01]: So,

19:26.955 --> 19:38.444
[SPEAKER_01]: I think closely, how you can emulate the environment that you want, even if you maybe don't have the means to give it practically, I think the content that you consume is really important.

19:38.624 --> 19:45.449
[SPEAKER_01]: I think about as immersion, anything that you want to do, try to immerse yourself in it as much as you can to create that awareness.

19:45.509 --> 19:48.271
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot pursue something that you don't know about.

19:48.791 --> 19:57.539
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, like, doing that curiosity and like that internship mindset, you got to like just keep being curious and asking questions, like, is there more I could know about this?

19:57.719 --> 19:59.080
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there someone I could talk to about this?

19:59.600 --> 20:02.383
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I also keep a mindset that anyone can be your teacher.

20:02.723 --> 20:05.706
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know things that I don't know because I am not you, right?

20:06.106 --> 20:09.128
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, if I come in with humility and curiosity,

20:09.889 --> 20:22.079
[SPEAKER_01]: undoubtedly you'll teach me something that I don't know and then that may open up my eyes to something else that sparks an idea in my head or makes me want to learn something that I didn't go a little bit deeper on something.

20:22.779 --> 20:29.925
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think it was that like the environment plus like just an endless curiosity allowed me to just like deep dive on things and kind of keep my blinders on.

20:30.645 --> 20:32.587
[SPEAKER_01]: and kind of focus on the bubble.

20:33.027 --> 20:46.356
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think to maybe put a cherry on top of that one is the environment plus the curiosity allows me to create a bubble around in my life where I can just like choose what to focus on.

20:46.876 --> 20:48.617
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it's not gonna make boring.

20:48.917 --> 20:57.463
[SPEAKER_01]: The rest of the world, it's that I'm just so focused on the things that I wanna be doing or like so immersed in my environment in my curiosities that like nothing else matters and I just don't notice it.

20:57.903 --> 21:00.383
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I just didn't fall off of the path too far.

21:00.403 --> 21:02.104
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, there were a couple of clothes calls here and here.

21:03.144 --> 21:05.964
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think that's the way I look at it.

21:06.865 --> 21:08.345
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's actually really smart.

21:09.025 --> 21:10.605
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Kudos to your mom, holy crap.

21:10.625 --> 21:11.785
[SPEAKER_00]: That's incredible.

21:11.965 --> 21:16.506
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that so much of it is, children learn from exposure.

21:16.666 --> 21:17.986
[SPEAKER_00]: You see your mom working hard.

21:18.006 --> 21:22.987
[SPEAKER_00]: You see you're putting in the hours or you're around these different people in community, you're like, oh, I'm exposed to things.

21:23.607 --> 21:25.968
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a moment I was probably,

21:27.088 --> 21:32.292
[SPEAKER_00]: nine, I was nine or ten and I was homeless as a kid because my mom was very deep into drugs.

21:32.332 --> 21:35.335
[SPEAKER_00]: And so sometimes I never knew where I was going to end up.

21:35.515 --> 21:38.577
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got bounced around place to place to place for four years.

21:38.957 --> 21:41.379
[SPEAKER_00]: I lived with over 30 different families.

21:41.719 --> 21:43.181
[SPEAKER_00]: It was really intense.

21:43.721 --> 21:49.606
[SPEAKER_00]: But once I was at this family's home where they were actually kind to each other,

21:50.346 --> 21:51.968
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I can't even make this up.

21:52.008 --> 22:00.636
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just so like an insane experience for me that no one was screaming, no one was fighting, no one was drunk, no one was hung over, no one was getting arrested.

22:00.656 --> 22:06.082
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just like, I think I was there for maybe a month, maybe two months, it's hard to recollect.

22:06.182 --> 22:12.828
[SPEAKER_00]: But I distinctly remember the feeling of walking into that home and having this overwhelming sense of safety.

22:13.509 --> 22:22.996
[SPEAKER_00]: And then as an adult, that's transformed into this thing where my home is the most calm, peaceful place you will ever step into, my recording studio, the same.

22:23.016 --> 22:28.159
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, even right now, we have candles lit and there's just an ambiance of the experience here, right?

22:28.199 --> 22:35.485
[SPEAKER_00]: Because with all the high stress of my life in the day-to-day running companies, traveling, speaking in stages, I was like, I need something calm.

22:36.105 --> 22:38.607
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do my best to be kind to people.

22:38.947 --> 22:39.847
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very intense.

22:39.887 --> 22:41.167
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this we've spent time together.

22:41.187 --> 22:42.128
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in intense dude.

22:42.448 --> 22:45.088
[SPEAKER_00]: I would like to consider that I'm a kind person.

22:45.508 --> 22:47.889
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that comes from the exposure to that.

22:48.209 --> 22:52.990
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean that I don't havehood in me because trust me, I dohood rat shit all the time even a pretty years old.

22:53.010 --> 22:56.431
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, God, do settle down, but it but the exposure is real.

22:56.471 --> 23:03.452
[SPEAKER_00]: And so as you were saying this, I was thinking, you know, I'm in the process of becoming a big brother again as a part of big brother's big sisters.

23:03.992 --> 23:09.855
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're your single mom listening, get your kids into big brothers, big sisters, please.

23:10.136 --> 23:14.518
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the greatest things that they can do is you have some kind of mentorship.

23:14.898 --> 23:17.200
[SPEAKER_00]: And for me, I grew up a boy scout that helped.

23:17.320 --> 23:20.101
[SPEAKER_00]: I played for sports, that helped.

23:20.241 --> 23:23.183
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was just always looking at the things I didn't want.

23:23.843 --> 23:31.648
[SPEAKER_00]: And once my best friend got arrested, when I was 18 and he was 17, I've said the story a million times so I won't go into the details.

23:33.220 --> 23:37.422
[SPEAKER_00]: the night that he got arrested, I had made this decision to tell him no.

23:38.103 --> 23:49.409
[SPEAKER_00]: And that had changed the trajectory of my life because with what had happened at 18 years old in Indiana, 20 something years ago, I would still be in prison.

23:49.929 --> 23:52.430
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was a minor and he was not right.

23:52.490 --> 23:53.911
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you look at these moments.

23:53.971 --> 23:56.733
[SPEAKER_00]: So much of it is like, how do I make these decisions?

23:57.513 --> 23:59.914
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's also the part you said about the exposure.

24:00.274 --> 24:01.674
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you listening to?

24:02.054 --> 24:03.234
[SPEAKER_00]: What are you watching?

24:03.334 --> 24:05.015
[SPEAKER_00]: Who are these kids hanging out with?

24:05.395 --> 24:07.515
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think, and you can tell me, you have children.

24:07.575 --> 24:08.516
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have children yet.

24:09.256 --> 24:15.397
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think as a parent, you kind of have a moral obligation to set your children up for success.

24:15.477 --> 24:19.898
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was your, you made them, like they've been in an as the come here.

24:19.918 --> 24:22.299
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that's true?

24:22.379 --> 24:25.320
[SPEAKER_00]: Or do you think like, I'm misinterpreting

24:30.421 --> 24:43.206
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think that's universal, but I do think generally you try and raise your kids such that they're not subject to the same bad and sad things that happen to you if you can.

24:44.967 --> 24:48.068
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's like this interesting like Teter Totter where

24:50.201 --> 24:53.265
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I think everyone gets messed up by their parents in some way.

24:53.465 --> 24:57.270
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like you just choose the vector that like you're good and choose the vector that you're bad.

24:57.590 --> 24:59.172
[SPEAKER_01]: And your parents aren't intentionally trying to make you bad.

24:59.192 --> 25:03.197
[SPEAKER_01]: They just can only focus on a handful of things based on the trauma that they had in their life.

25:04.399 --> 25:04.779
[SPEAKER_01]: And so...

25:07.262 --> 25:15.524
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I know what, I think I know the things that made me successful and I think I know the things that were hard in my life that I'd like my children to avoid.

25:16.104 --> 25:19.325
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I try and focus on those things, but like inevitably I'll do something wrong.

25:19.805 --> 25:24.306
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, I certainly want, I want good for them and I want great for them.

25:24.946 --> 25:28.327
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and I'm willing to do whatever it takes to get that.

25:28.787 --> 25:29.047
[SPEAKER_01]: I think.

25:30.187 --> 25:45.718
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's probably a lot of people in the world and especially in this country who just like don't have the freedom or the latitude to think about how to be successful because they're just worried so much day to day how to not fail and just like how to survive and stay keep their head above water.

25:46.438 --> 26:10.076
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think there's like there's that's the resistance in people's lives, whether that's like economic or socioeconomic or like bias or you know, there's all these things that people are thinking about I think it's It's nice to be able to have that that bigger goal or dream or hope for your children and I don't think that's innate I think that's the circumstances can really beat you down

26:11.016 --> 26:20.243
[SPEAKER_01]: And not give you enough imagination, enough like head space, like margin in your head to think about the future in a big way.

26:20.804 --> 26:29.611
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can't think about the future in a big way, because you're just so focused on making it day to day in the present, and I think that probably makes it harder to set yourself up for success, much less your children.

26:30.917 --> 26:47.844
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm, that feels very astute to me and I think you're right because when I go back and I look up these spaces of time where things just were not working, whether it was as a kid or in my adult life, it was always the chaos was so inept, ineptly everywhere, like I couldn't escape.

26:47.904 --> 26:55.608
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there was no space for this escape velocity to the space of creating the margin to sit in that vector where you're like, oh yeah.

26:56.488 --> 26:57.289
[SPEAKER_00]: I can have a dream.

26:57.389 --> 26:58.429
[SPEAKER_00]: I can have a vision.

26:58.810 --> 27:00.751
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I resonate with that a lot.

27:00.771 --> 27:02.532
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, especially dude, it's hard.

27:02.592 --> 27:07.575
[SPEAKER_00]: Guys, I saw today somewhere here in Texas, there was a place where gas was $8.50 a gallon.

27:07.595 --> 27:08.076
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, yo!

27:11.778 --> 27:15.081
[SPEAKER_00]: people are barely surviving and now we have to deal with that.

27:15.741 --> 27:24.649
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will have to throw a wrench in this also because, you know, when you have escaped the loss, the it requires a lot of force, right?

27:25.009 --> 27:30.393
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that in order for you to create change in your life, dude, sometimes you got to force it.

27:30.633 --> 27:34.917
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you literally have to just stand in front of it and be like, I'm going to figure this out.

27:35.257 --> 27:35.937
[SPEAKER_00]: no matter what.

27:36.318 --> 27:46.963
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though all this chaos is happening around me, I will put together some kind of frame to navigate this because it's like, if you don't, this is how I kind of live my life.

27:47.083 --> 27:54.287
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a me specific thing as a guy who doesn't have a family and kids who, you know, I have my own struggles.

27:54.327 --> 27:55.187
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm running businesses.

27:55.227 --> 27:57.148
[SPEAKER_00]: I've have a lot of people who work for me.

27:57.208 --> 28:01.150
[SPEAKER_00]: So in some sense, like my children quote unquote, I have to make sure they're paid.

28:01.190 --> 28:01.410
[SPEAKER_00]: So they

28:04.592 --> 28:20.182
[SPEAKER_00]: And in our moments where I'm like, dude, if you don't get your ass out of bed right now and go do this thing, and you have all of this pressure on you, it's going to collapse, but I put in systems to be able to navigate it, can I find seven minutes to meditate.

28:20.582 --> 28:47.063
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you can't find seven minutes in 24 hours, I think you have bigger problems, you know, and it's not you don't have to do the ice bath and the journaling and the meditation and the sun and your about all like you don't have to do all those things like you have to do the things that move you forward in a daily basis, but I I feel like you also have to embrace failure one of the things that you've mentioned a couple times is failure and I think people are so afraid of it.

28:47.743 --> 28:56.467
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would argue now the more afraid of it than they've ever been, because for whatever reason, we have eliminated the space for people to try.

28:56.487 --> 29:01.890
[SPEAKER_00]: I see this all the time where people get clowned online for trying.

29:01.910 --> 29:08.453
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, you know, when did it become so bad to try to put yourself out there to make me attempt?

29:08.913 --> 29:11.955
[SPEAKER_00]: I promise you, you did not go to space the first time somebody was like,

29:13.035 --> 29:15.757
[SPEAKER_00]: No, if the fucking you'd be dead, for sure, 100%.

29:16.298 --> 29:28.689
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think about the first die who was ever like, I'm gonna try to fly and he took a bunch of tree branches and he tied them to his arm with vines and his friends and the cave were like, bro, this is a bad idea.

29:28.709 --> 29:30.851
[SPEAKER_00]: And he jumped off and he 100% died, right?

29:33.393 --> 29:36.274
[SPEAKER_00]: But the next guy was like, maybe there's a better way to do this.

29:36.455 --> 29:37.635
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to keep trying.

29:38.155 --> 29:42.597
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think there's something to be embracing of the failure.

29:43.178 --> 29:45.199
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the catalyst for success.

29:45.719 --> 29:48.060
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to know your thoughts on that.

29:48.160 --> 29:53.843
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we move people towards allowing failure and the trying to be a part of their life?

29:53.883 --> 29:58.065
[SPEAKER_00]: So they can put themselves in the trajectory of making their dreams come true.

29:59.776 --> 30:02.998
[SPEAKER_01]: I think first that comes down to like, how do you define failure?

30:03.098 --> 30:18.527
[SPEAKER_01]: Like let's make sure we understand the words we're using because I think oftentimes we use words and we have like these culturally imposed ideas for the definitions behind these words, but we have a choice for like how we internalize those definitions and so you can

30:19.247 --> 30:23.793
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you want to be successful in general you have to do things that the average person is not doing.

30:24.353 --> 30:33.304
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if you look at how you understand language and culture and these words and the concept of failure, you might have to understand it differently than the average person.

30:33.324 --> 30:37.349
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's step one is like being okay stepping away from group think.

30:37.930 --> 30:44.532
[SPEAKER_01]: And then saying, my personal definition of failure is, I've only truly failed if I didn't learn anything as a result.

30:44.852 --> 30:49.074
[SPEAKER_01]: If something bad happened to me, I'm just like, like, I got into a car accident like 10 years ago.

30:49.174 --> 30:51.714
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not my fault, but there's nothing I could have done to stop it.

30:52.115 --> 30:53.395
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, is that a failure?

30:53.635 --> 30:53.995
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

30:54.115 --> 30:54.755
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't speeding.

30:54.795 --> 30:55.556
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't doing anything wrong.

30:55.576 --> 30:57.796
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to just pop the bed, I don't know, or am I smashed into them?

30:59.897 --> 31:05.378
[SPEAKER_01]: That is like a failure of, you know, because there was an accident that happened, but completely out of my control.

31:05.638 --> 31:09.719
[SPEAKER_01]: And even when I learned something from it, there's nothing I could have done differently to prevent that from happening.

31:09.759 --> 31:11.559
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just an honest to God's failure.

31:12.180 --> 31:15.340
[SPEAKER_01]: But like other things, like I've failed assignments.

31:15.400 --> 31:17.121
[SPEAKER_01]: I've broken hardware at my job.

31:17.161 --> 31:22.782
[SPEAKER_01]: But I've pissed off presidents and CEOs at my job, you know, those things are failures.

31:22.842 --> 31:27.423
[SPEAKER_01]: And that taught me how to navigate the environment better because these are the people that, in some sense,

31:29.743 --> 31:38.431
[SPEAKER_01]: And so understanding how people work, how people work in a corporate environment, like those weren't failures, those are opportunities from going to learn and figure out how to how to navigate.

31:39.171 --> 31:42.194
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I think how you define failure is really important.

31:42.574 --> 31:48.780
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, but then also like iterating and taking the time to reflect.

31:49.240 --> 31:56.866
[SPEAKER_01]: So like when something bad has happened to you, I think it's natural to just like want to forget it and move on as quickly as possible.

31:57.547 --> 32:04.232
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you just pause for maybe just those seven minutes to meditate and you think like, why did that happen and what could I do better?

32:05.233 --> 32:09.456
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you an example and it took me a long time to learn this, like engineering school was hard.

32:10.257 --> 32:12.118
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not the smartest person in my class.

32:12.559 --> 32:23.767
[SPEAKER_01]: I was probably just one of the most persistent people that just worked hard and surrounded myself with good friends and like that's literally how I got through engineering school with a good support system and just the persistence to keep picking myself up.

32:24.915 --> 32:37.960
[SPEAKER_01]: But one thing that I just didn't learn until like late in my college career was like, if you do an assignment and you get a bunch of things wrong, like the early version of Chris would be like, I got up with just stuff wrong, okay, and just move on.

32:38.800 --> 32:50.664
[SPEAKER_01]: But as I started to like surround myself with people who were better at studying, I learned that no, you actually have to go back and look at your homework and see all the things you did wrong and then go correct them and then go to the professor to see like, why you got these things wrong?

32:50.684 --> 32:52.065
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it a fundamental understanding?

32:53.065 --> 32:55.567
[SPEAKER_01]: Or did you just like make a little error that you missed?

32:56.607 --> 33:02.771
[SPEAKER_01]: And so having that step after failure to think about how you can get better at it, understanding why it happened.

33:03.251 --> 33:05.693
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't understand why it happened, then you're never going to be able to fix it.

33:05.853 --> 33:08.855
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can't fix it, then you're just going to continue to fail again.

33:10.325 --> 33:20.090
[SPEAKER_01]: And so another, you know, I have a lot of plat- I think in platitudes and like, and mental models and stuff, but I try and tell people like, make new mistakes.

33:20.390 --> 33:20.570
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

33:21.030 --> 33:26.373
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're, if you're making mistakes that people have already made, then that was an opportunity for you to have learned something.

33:27.313 --> 33:30.455
[SPEAKER_01]: You could have, you could have succeeded there if you'd learn from somebody else's mistakes.

33:30.975 --> 33:34.157
[SPEAKER_01]: And so try and tailor your mistakes to be different than anybody else's.

33:34.197 --> 33:38.619
[SPEAKER_01]: So at least you're learning, you're pushing the envelope on on knowledge and capability.

33:39.299 --> 33:42.802
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe learning something that you can add to the body of knowledge of other people's failures.

33:42.923 --> 33:48.728
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think it really comes down to like how you define it and then how you respond directly in that moment to failure.

33:48.828 --> 33:52.311
[SPEAKER_01]: It can knock you down or you can use it as knowledge for the future.

33:53.539 --> 33:55.120
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love all of that.

33:55.140 --> 33:59.822
[SPEAKER_00]: And I also think as long as you're alive, you still have opportunity to course correct.

34:00.322 --> 34:06.905
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you're always one degree in one decision away from things being wildly different in your life.

34:06.945 --> 34:12.667
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if I look back on my path, I mean, I was destined for prison at 18 years old.

34:12.727 --> 34:13.948
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no question about it.

34:14.088 --> 34:16.569
[SPEAKER_00]: Half my, I got family in prison for life today.

34:16.629 --> 34:21.171
[SPEAKER_00]: My uncle, my cousin, I'm one of the few people my whole family cousin ever even been to jail.

34:21.831 --> 34:24.893
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I was in the streets doing really intense things.

34:25.153 --> 34:31.797
[SPEAKER_00]: My three childhood best friends have been murdered, all of these environments and situations I had been in over the years.

34:32.257 --> 34:44.005
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was just these literal decisions to like look at the mistakes that I was making and to quantify the long tell effect of them in the macro and be like, I don't think this is right for me.

34:44.665 --> 34:53.488
[SPEAKER_00]: And a part of that's really difficult because you have to sit in these moments of looking at your life and saying, nope, this isn't actually what I want.

34:54.129 --> 34:56.810
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reflection I think is the only time that you get there.

34:57.250 --> 35:07.514
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when you're in the present, you're like, yeah, this is just the reality of what's happening, but in that deep reflection, I think also I would add an end to everything that you just said.

35:08.134 --> 35:13.056
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe that you have to approach this from this space of giving yourself grace.

35:13.596 --> 35:15.177
[SPEAKER_00]: because you're not perfect.

35:15.617 --> 35:17.358
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the time you're a nightmare.

35:17.719 --> 35:23.943
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, really, if you think about it, why would anyone even think the way that you think about yourself?

35:24.123 --> 35:24.343
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

35:24.403 --> 35:26.504
[SPEAKER_00]: You're so, we're often so mean to ourselves.

35:26.544 --> 35:36.610
[SPEAKER_00]: And so contradictory to the things that we tell other people, where it's like, wait a second, there's a space for grace here, there's a space for kindness, there's a space for forgiveness.

35:37.131 --> 35:38.652
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you're also like me,

35:39.352 --> 35:43.596
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm my nickname should be Michael, I like to learn the hard way, right?

35:43.656 --> 35:48.820
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm the same kid who put a fork in the electrical socket because I just had to know.

35:49.640 --> 35:50.441
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

35:51.021 --> 35:56.146
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wrote down a note as you were talking and I wrote down make new mistakes.

35:56.826 --> 35:58.668
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that is so profound.

35:59.388 --> 36:24.275
[SPEAKER_00]: because it's going to require you to probably, and you can tell me, I'm going to dive into this a little bit more because I want to understand how to do this from a practical standpoint, if there's a frame or model we can use, but when I hear this, the thing that comes to mind for me is I sit and I go, is there a mentor I can learn from is there a coach, is there a book, is there a podcast, is there a phone call, is there an internship, is there is something that I can do,

36:24.975 --> 36:43.966
[SPEAKER_00]: But then also dude, I'm telling you, like this probably is just a character trait of mine where I'm like, yeah, I heard you, but I'm still going to try it anyway and then tell it like solidifies and that experience like it never feels different and so I'm curious for the in the space of of make the new mistake.

36:44.586 --> 36:55.644
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there a model for that, is there a path to doing this in a way that is productive that doesn't lead down the the space of beating yourself up like what does that actually look like in a day today.

36:57.530 --> 37:00.272
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it goes back to what we were saying before about the environment.

37:00.312 --> 37:05.074
[SPEAKER_01]: So you get to, to a certain extent, choose your environment, choose the people you get to surround yourself in.

37:05.595 --> 37:11.118
[SPEAKER_01]: And even if you don't have like real people in your life, there's ways to to supplement that with the content that you can sue.

37:11.858 --> 37:16.041
[SPEAKER_01]: And so something I call like the awareness sponsorship ladder.

37:16.141 --> 37:26.126
[SPEAKER_01]: So you think about like the higher you are in this ladder, kind of the the faster you maybe go along your path and more the fewer the more guidance

37:27.527 --> 37:31.129
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's always worth awareness, like you can't do something you don't know about, and then representation.

37:31.229 --> 37:42.334
[SPEAKER_01]: Ideally, if you can relate to something better, see someone that looks like you doing the thing that you want to do, then that opens up your mind like, oh, people like me can do these things.

37:42.394 --> 37:48.937
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, one of my good friends, Sidney, he grew up on the south side of Chicago, and he barely made it out.

37:51.958 --> 38:03.465
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, he saw a PBS documentary about like the moon or something like that and just like that he was able to to see himself doing something that he didn't know that it was even humanly possible.

38:03.525 --> 38:08.788
[SPEAKER_01]: Like because in in the hood of South San Chicago, it's like, it's a very different life than like, you know, launching rockets the space.

38:09.749 --> 38:10.670
[SPEAKER_01]: So his representation.

38:11.736 --> 38:16.838
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's like a role model, a role model, someone in your life that doesn't necessarily need to be in your life.

38:16.898 --> 38:18.118
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just someone you look up to.

38:18.499 --> 38:24.901
[SPEAKER_01]: You could be Barack Obama, but you're probably never going to meet Barack Obama, but you see him how he operates in the public war in sphere.

38:25.461 --> 38:27.242
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get a sense for his values are.

38:27.942 --> 38:30.803
[SPEAKER_01]: You can see his academic and professional history.

38:30.823 --> 38:33.004
[SPEAKER_01]: You can say like, hey, those are cool things.

38:33.024 --> 38:37.606
[SPEAKER_01]: That gives me an idea of how types of things I may need to do to get to a position like that.

38:38.466 --> 38:47.612
[SPEAKER_01]: than beyond role model as a mentor, a mentor someone that you can actually talk to in a dialogue and say like, hey, tell me about your experiences so I know another way to succeed.

38:47.672 --> 38:57.258
[SPEAKER_01]: That might not be the way that I succeeded, but like if I can learn from your failures and your successes and a way that gets that speaks to me how I need to be spoken to, so like,

38:57.818 --> 39:04.741
[SPEAKER_01]: But hearing how I learn, that's the benefit of having a dialogue rather than just like listening to content.

39:05.301 --> 39:09.703
[SPEAKER_01]: And then from there, it's like where you really get the acceleration from a mentoring of a coach.

39:09.743 --> 39:12.805
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like someone who's looking at your performance and telling you what to do specifically.

39:13.505 --> 39:23.257
[SPEAKER_01]: Saying like, hey, what you did last last week in that meeting or in that, you know, in that game wasn't quite right, change your performance this way, and you'll be better.

39:23.557 --> 39:28.903
[SPEAKER_01]: And then people doesn't tell you what to do, they tell you their experience and they give you some guidance on some advice, like based on their experience.

39:29.324 --> 39:32.167
[SPEAKER_01]: But like a coach is like an expert in like specific things that you need help in.

39:32.928 --> 39:36.271
[SPEAKER_01]: And then from there, it's kind of the top of the latter as like sponsorship.

39:36.692 --> 39:46.021
[SPEAKER_01]: At someone that kind of embodies all those things we already talked about, but also has the ability to open doors for you, to create opportunities that you, yourself, do not have access to.

39:47.803 --> 39:51.546
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I know like depending on where you're on the ladder, it can seem pretty daunting.

39:51.586 --> 39:54.129
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, well, I'm stuck here in my life.

39:54.910 --> 39:57.132
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have access to people who can open doors for me.

39:57.932 --> 40:03.194
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I'll tell you the example that really like changed my mindset and kind of set my core beliefs.

40:03.894 --> 40:09.537
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I became an engineer, no one in my family was even remotely into science or technology or, you know, engineering or math.

40:10.297 --> 40:17.119
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, one of the first people in my family to graduate college, it's still the only person kind of in the hard sciences and in aerospace engineering.

40:18.440 --> 40:23.022
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I didn't meet an engineer until I was 16, but I was pretty sure I was going to be one by the time I was 12.

40:24.062 --> 40:25.824
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like how did I get there?

40:25.844 --> 40:26.484
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the inspiration?

40:26.504 --> 40:28.907
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the awareness path that led me there?

40:29.427 --> 40:30.828
[SPEAKER_01]: And to be honest, it was Star Trek.

40:31.029 --> 40:32.150
[SPEAKER_01]: I watched a lot of Star Trek.

40:32.190 --> 40:35.433
[SPEAKER_01]: Like one of the benefits of being a latchty kid is I watched a lot of television.

40:35.953 --> 40:37.735
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Star Trek became my inspiration.

40:38.315 --> 40:40.757
[SPEAKER_01]: And specifically, Star Trek, the next generation.

40:40.777 --> 40:48.324
[SPEAKER_01]: If you remember Lieutenant Commander Jory LaForge played by Levar Burton, same guy doing rainbow on TV as well.

40:49.085 --> 41:03.815
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like that to me showed like the future of possibility and in my mind the future was so far away I didn't I wasn't able to like untangle 30 years in the future from 300 years in the future and it's like the future was just the future and I felt like that if I could.

41:05.236 --> 41:11.563
[SPEAKER_01]: If I just set my direction on this path and that's probably something that I could achieve or at least move in that direction.

41:12.044 --> 41:17.370
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like Lieutenant Commander Jordan LeForge was the chief engineer on a spaceship and he was black.

41:17.510 --> 41:20.533
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, okay, and none of this was like apparent at the time.

41:20.613 --> 41:25.119
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just kind of like my program and as a child, like in my indoctrination, if you will.

41:25.819 --> 41:40.367
[SPEAKER_01]: And that kind of set the stage for like my awareness tier and I was like, okay, something like this is possible and then they met an engineer and that became like Representation and role model and over time I just kind of learned Through trial and error that having people in my life

41:42.481 --> 41:51.570
[SPEAKER_01]: Being open enough to tell people where I'm at and what I want to do, so that they can help me along my journey for one, but then like having having a big goal to work towards.

41:52.531 --> 42:01.160
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you don't achieve that goal, like working towards a big goal just sets you on a good path and forces you into motion and it's better than stagnating.

42:01.640 --> 42:09.526
[SPEAKER_01]: So I keep two big goals in, you know, at all times, and I'm actually at a point where I mean, maybe need to get rid of one because they're working against each other.

42:09.546 --> 42:11.948
[SPEAKER_01]: But like it's more, the goals should set the path.

42:12.188 --> 42:16.471
[SPEAKER_01]: And even if you don't get the destination, figure out a path that you're going to enjoy.

42:17.111 --> 42:22.075
[SPEAKER_01]: And every now and then, you'll either go further than anybody else has ever gone on that path, which is awesome.

42:22.795 --> 42:33.222
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you'll achieve the thing that you thought was impossible, which is even more awesome, so like just make, you know, set your goals high and try and get it move beyond your current existence.

42:35.388 --> 42:36.908
[SPEAKER_00]: move beyond your current existence.

42:37.288 --> 42:37.749
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that.

42:37.769 --> 42:38.889
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's very powerful.

42:39.229 --> 42:45.490
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's, it's, I, I also grew up, again, as a last key kid, I spent so much time watching television as well.

42:46.151 --> 42:51.612
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was a, I'm, I'm like a 70 year old grandpa at 12.

42:52.032 --> 42:55.913
[SPEAKER_00]: I would literally just be sitting in my living room watching World War II documentaries.

42:56.353 --> 43:03.358
[SPEAKER_00]: like all the time, Vietnam documentaries, Korean War documentaries, I was obsessed with war, and I grew up playing G.I.

43:03.378 --> 43:09.243
[SPEAKER_00]: Joe's all the time and shooting guns, and I was a Boy Scout, and my entire path, everything that I saw.

43:09.423 --> 43:15.067
[SPEAKER_00]: But one of the most interesting things that happened to me as I saw the movie Sniper with Tom Beringer, and I was like, oh,

43:15.247 --> 43:15.687
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.

43:15.787 --> 43:16.588
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I want to do.

43:16.628 --> 43:18.029
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like nine or ten years old.

43:18.470 --> 43:22.693
[SPEAKER_00]: I was home sick from school when I still my mom was still before anyway, it doesn't matter.

43:22.953 --> 43:26.536
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm watching this film and I was just like, oh my god, that's the path.

43:27.136 --> 43:30.399
[SPEAKER_00]: And dude, this was the only trajectory that I was on.

43:30.959 --> 43:48.586
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was RJROTC Army and then Navy in high school and one day the Marine Corps retriever came to our school during one shower and I went, I registered, I signed up, me and my best friend at the time, we both joined and I go to do the AzVab.

43:48.766 --> 43:51.787
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a perfect score, I could do anything I wanted, which means Cypher.

43:51.987 --> 43:54.768
[SPEAKER_00]: I could go and be a fucking Cypher, like, yes, this is what I want.

43:55.168 --> 43:57.730
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, there's a lot of things to lead to that moment, but I was on the path.

43:58.251 --> 44:00.212
[SPEAKER_00]: But then, I had to go and do maps.

44:00.953 --> 44:07.438
[SPEAKER_00]: And I could not pass maps because I'd injured my knee, wrestling, that same senior year of high school.

44:08.198 --> 44:10.780
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had asthma, and they would not let me in.

44:11.501 --> 44:13.062
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sitting here and I'm looking at it.

44:13.082 --> 44:14.864
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, I don't know what to do now.

44:15.639 --> 44:31.275
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no idea, and people have the same experience that I had, where now the trajectory has changed, you don't know what to do, but you have to course correct, and you talked about exposure, so, and I've shared the story a thousand times, I'm gonna do it anyway.

44:32.497 --> 44:35.440
[SPEAKER_00]: My best friend at the time was on my space.

44:35.860 --> 44:37.162
[SPEAKER_00]: We were chatting on my space.

44:37.182 --> 44:39.203
[SPEAKER_00]: He had just bought a brand new Chevy Tahoe.

44:39.664 --> 44:41.065
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this is the same kid.

44:41.105 --> 44:42.026
[SPEAKER_00]: We would skip school.

44:42.046 --> 44:42.887
[SPEAKER_00]: We would get high.

44:42.927 --> 44:43.848
[SPEAKER_00]: We were doing things.

44:44.028 --> 44:45.569
[SPEAKER_00]: He was way more academic than I was.

44:45.629 --> 44:46.590
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just bored with school.

44:46.610 --> 44:47.531
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't interest me.

44:48.051 --> 44:48.272
[SPEAKER_00]: But...

44:48.992 --> 44:54.857
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember messaging him and I was like, dude, whatever you did to get this Tahoe, tell me what you did.

44:55.338 --> 44:58.280
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, oh, I'm working for an insurance company.

44:58.961 --> 45:01.303
[SPEAKER_00]: And she did my brain exploded.

45:01.463 --> 45:05.667
[SPEAKER_00]: I kid you not, because I didn't know that was possible.

45:06.267 --> 45:07.167
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm about exposure.

45:07.207 --> 45:10.288
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sitting here, I'm on a trajectory that I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing.

45:10.608 --> 45:11.548
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm floundering.

45:11.628 --> 45:13.049
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm working at a restaurant.

45:13.089 --> 45:15.409
[SPEAKER_00]: Like life is just not good at all.

45:15.709 --> 45:16.950
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm barely paying my rent.

45:17.270 --> 45:21.171
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so broke that breaks on my car went out.

45:21.831 --> 45:30.753
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was using my emergency break to drive around the city because I did not have enough money to get my brakes fixed, which is complete insanity, by the way.

45:31.393 --> 45:36.954
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm chatting with him, he says it's what I'm doing and I go, oh my God, that's the path.

45:37.535 --> 45:38.855
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the thing I've been looking for.

45:39.175 --> 45:47.957
[SPEAKER_00]: And for two years, from 19 until right before I turn 21, I applied for every insurance company in America, got rejected hundreds and hundreds of times.

45:47.977 --> 45:48.977
[SPEAKER_00]: It was insane.

45:49.317 --> 45:54.599
[SPEAKER_00]: But I never quit and the July before I turned 21, I landed that job with that

45:59.820 --> 46:03.323
[SPEAKER_00]: and the reason I'm bringing the story up is because what you just said is so true.

46:03.643 --> 46:10.087
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like if you want to change your life, you have to find a way to be exposed to something different.

46:10.888 --> 46:15.751
[SPEAKER_00]: And we live in this time where people are, they don't leave their house, they watch YouTube all day.

46:15.771 --> 46:20.755
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like, you should stop listening to my podcast right now and go do the thing that you've been thinking about doing.

46:21.215 --> 46:23.117
[SPEAKER_00]: Go and put yourself into the world.

46:23.557 --> 46:24.398
[SPEAKER_00]: I was listening to this.

46:25.313 --> 46:26.874
[SPEAKER_00]: interview with Matthew McConaughey.

46:27.315 --> 46:27.915
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I've read it.

46:28.015 --> 46:31.217
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd read that his book, uh, green lights, which is a phenomenal book.

46:31.397 --> 46:33.439
[SPEAKER_00]: I think everyone should read it because it's just super cool.

46:34.139 --> 46:36.501
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's just part of the book he's talking about.

46:36.541 --> 46:41.445
[SPEAKER_00]: He's sitting with his mom and his mom's like, you're not allowed to be in the house at the lights or on.

46:41.985 --> 46:43.746
[SPEAKER_00]: Wiring you watch it or if the sun is out.

46:43.866 --> 46:48.230
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are you watching television and other people doing the thing that you could be doing?

46:48.930 --> 46:54.716
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that seed got planted for you, oh man, I can be in space and here's Levar Burton.

46:54.796 --> 46:59.801
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a black man who was in space and also reading Rainbow, which was super cool.

47:00.042 --> 47:03.465
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and so there's this exposure to this reality of something different.

47:03.885 --> 47:09.751
[SPEAKER_00]: And then for me, what happened was entrepreneurship, because I was exposed to a shark tank.

47:10.372 --> 47:31.077
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is like the very first thing that for me I'm working in this corporate job and I'm like I hate this I hate every moment of this I should go do my own thing and at 24 that's why I started my path that was 16 almost 17 years ago because I was like putting myself in the environment to go and learn

47:31.817 --> 47:40.924
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's something here that I think a lot of people suffer with because they're not yet at where they need, they believe that they need to be.

47:41.564 --> 47:43.385
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's this place of worthiness.

47:43.986 --> 47:46.308
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they're like, I should be great.

47:46.508 --> 47:48.829
[SPEAKER_00]: I should not have to ask for help.

47:48.889 --> 47:55.634
[SPEAKER_00]: I should have it all figured out if I can't do it, then why do I, you know, and so how did you navigate that?

47:55.654 --> 47:56.235
[SPEAKER_00]: Because man,

47:57.075 --> 47:58.035
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never met Richard.

47:58.055 --> 48:09.720
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been invited to nectar island before I couldn't make it because I had something else and hopefully I'll get a meet him one day But as an entrepreneur you look like I got like that you go holy shit like that guy like like he's the guy, right?

48:09.740 --> 48:18.823
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how do you have this conversation in this narrative internally about your own self worth when it's like I've got to go put myself out there

48:19.403 --> 48:20.323
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what I'm doing.

48:20.723 --> 48:21.323
[SPEAKER_00]: I need help.

48:21.744 --> 48:23.124
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to be exposed to this.

48:23.284 --> 48:24.064
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to find this.

48:24.104 --> 48:24.924
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to find that.

48:25.244 --> 48:26.945
[SPEAKER_00]: What's that journey been like for you?

48:29.245 --> 48:34.846
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, it's been other people realizing that for me because that's that has been a major blind spot for me.

48:35.286 --> 48:43.308
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had this this maybe internal struggle where like I feel like I need to be able to do something and if I can't do it, then there's something wrong with me.

48:44.288 --> 49:00.298
[SPEAKER_01]: And the benefit of that is I over prepare for things because I think I'm always the problem and it doesn't usually occur to me that like the environment or other people of the problem and so that I could maybe just like change my environment or like seek other opportunities to do something better I assume I'm the problem.

49:01.679 --> 49:09.788
[SPEAKER_01]: Which isn't always great because then I I basically taking responsibility for things that aren't my fault like in college Like I was saying like I had a really hard time asking for help.

49:10.148 --> 49:15.974
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't learn to like my senior year of college Like I could go to my professor's office hours and they would just teach me the things one-on-one

49:17.027 --> 49:24.633
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, I'm paying like $50,000 a year, literally every person on a educator, like on a school campus, is there to make you smarter?

49:25.134 --> 49:27.876
[SPEAKER_01]: It's their job, they're just waiting in their office, trying to make somebody else smart.

49:28.456 --> 49:33.921
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just didn't realize that I was paying for that and not utilizing that as a resource.

49:34.361 --> 49:35.322
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like one learning.

49:36.863 --> 49:42.608
[SPEAKER_01]: And then even when I started my first career in the helicopter industry, actually in Texas, company called Bell, I'm not too far from Dallas.

49:45.370 --> 49:48.452
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my, my first boss kept encouraging me to get a mentor.

49:48.472 --> 50:00.979
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he saw like some amount of potential in me that like I could be taught and then if I just have like enough direction and guidance on a regular basis that like More, more greatness could be extracted from me or something.

50:00.999 --> 50:06.963
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know exactly know what he thought but He just kept saying Chris, you should really consider getting a mentor and I was like, I don't need one of those.

50:07.003 --> 50:08.123
[SPEAKER_01]: I can just do it all myself.

50:08.143 --> 50:08.684
[SPEAKER_01]: I can figure it out.

50:10.224 --> 50:14.026
[SPEAKER_01]: But over time, I started to get these opportunities where I went from one thing to the next.

50:14.106 --> 50:17.307
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes they were like progressive moves, sometimes they were lateral moves that were.

50:18.388 --> 50:21.349
[SPEAKER_01]: I was capable of doing, but it was very different than what I was doing before.

50:22.190 --> 50:26.191
[SPEAKER_01]: Like moving from the helicopter and to the space industry was like one of those big examples of one.

50:26.671 --> 50:31.494
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I'm getting at is through those experiences, I developed like imposter syndrome.

50:33.462 --> 50:38.066
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like I was faking it and I didn't, I wasn't worthy of being where I was being.

50:38.086 --> 50:45.913
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't worthy of the role and the title that I'd been given and I wasn't able to solve the problems that I was being held responsible for.

50:47.334 --> 50:54.861
[SPEAKER_01]: And more often than not, it took those mentors that I ended up collecting over the years that would say, hey, Chris, you can do this.

50:54.901 --> 50:57.863
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just thinking about this a little bit wrong, but you're pretty much there.

50:57.923 --> 50:59.405
[SPEAKER_01]: Stop beating so, beating up on yourself.

51:00.365 --> 51:06.290
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, so it's funny you bring up Necker Island because I was like one of my major aha moments.

51:06.550 --> 51:09.152
[SPEAKER_01]: And this may even like tie back to like our internship concept.

51:09.992 --> 51:15.936
[SPEAKER_01]: Like most of the opportunities that I had were actually like in a parallel lane to like my main career path.

51:16.317 --> 51:17.718
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the outreach work that I was doing.

51:17.738 --> 51:19.819
[SPEAKER_01]: I was giving back, I was mentoring kids, I was going,

51:22.301 --> 51:35.252
[SPEAKER_01]: doing speaking, running tours at the facility, at our spaceship factory, and those are the things that actually gave me a different opportunity set than what my career was doing.

51:35.552 --> 51:46.302
[SPEAKER_01]: And the thing that led me to space was the confluence of the performance I was doing in my career, and the performance I had in my outreach work, those two things came back together and combined into a mega opportunity.

51:47.926 --> 51:51.188
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like the outreach work in a certain sense was an internship.

51:51.588 --> 51:53.109
[SPEAKER_01]: But putting that aside for a second.

51:54.170 --> 51:56.691
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got this opportunity to go to Nekar Island.

51:56.771 --> 52:03.635
[SPEAKER_01]: I started a scholarship program in 2020 called the Black Leaders and Aerospace Scholarship and Training Program or Blast.

52:03.675 --> 52:06.497
[SPEAKER_01]: It's no longer running, but we had about three or four years.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We put maybe 15 to 20 students.

52:09.278 --> 52:11.740
[SPEAKER_01]: I get about scholarships, top them went to the leadership program.

52:12.660 --> 52:18.804
[SPEAKER_01]: And this was actually inspired by like the murder of George Floyd, and we can go deep on that in a second if we want.

52:18.844 --> 52:25.228
[SPEAKER_01]: But essentially like George Floyd was murdered, we were sending people this space and I couldn't believe that we were doing both of these things at the same time.

52:25.369 --> 52:27.510
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's like the 1960s all over again.

52:28.050 --> 52:31.272
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought like what can I as an individual do within my capability?

52:31.813 --> 52:40.819
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I started the scholarship program, the company supported that, and then that got the attention of like Richard Branson and like the Virgin group as a whole.

52:41.339 --> 52:54.990
[SPEAKER_01]: I ended up winning a competition within the Virgin Group that essentially made me like employee of the year across all Virgin companies like 40,000 employees and then that got me to necker Island, which was like that leadership mastermind and it was on necker Island.

52:55.250 --> 52:56.612
[SPEAKER_01]: I done the scholarship.

52:56.632 --> 52:57.272
[SPEAKER_01]: I was working.

52:58.633 --> 53:23.219
[SPEAKER_01]: doing pretty good on my job, getting promoted, and then I was on necker Island around like literally like world leaders and entrepreneurs and CEOs and and you know and Richard Branson himself and you know that was if there ever was a time where I didn't feel worthy of being in a room like I was probably the lowest person on the totem pole because I just kind of won this competition everyone else paid their way there where they were invited and I just like showed up as like a charity

53:28.600 --> 53:36.086
[SPEAKER_01]: I was validated by all of those people there that I looked up to as being like so much further along in their career and what I defined as success at the time.

53:36.766 --> 53:45.352
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like when someone is like literally run a country or like has run a good Gillian dollar company or several of them at the same time and they're saying like, hey Chris, I want to mentor you.

53:45.733 --> 53:46.433
[SPEAKER_01]: You are worthy.

53:46.613 --> 53:48.154
[SPEAKER_01]: You can do so many things.

53:48.195 --> 53:50.596
[SPEAKER_01]: You can actually do these things that you probably never even thought about.

53:50.616 --> 53:51.037
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like,

53:52.767 --> 53:55.490
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like that was all very, very validating for me.

53:56.291 --> 54:08.703
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'll bring it back to something I learned early in my career called like the rule of three or like a 33% rule, where I think to do this actionably, you should surround yourself with like three different types of people.

54:09.163 --> 54:11.886
[SPEAKER_01]: There's people who are above you, kind of what you aspire to.

54:11.906 --> 54:14.489
[SPEAKER_01]: That should be a third of your, your network or your environment.

54:14.929 --> 54:20.631
[SPEAKER_01]: a third should be people like roughly at your level that you can relate to, you know, have those late conversations saying like, ah, I suck at this.

54:20.811 --> 54:21.351
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, me too.

54:21.431 --> 54:23.872
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's figure something out together or let's like hold each other accountable.

54:24.672 --> 54:29.073
[SPEAKER_01]: And then those people that are like below you on the path that you can go mentor and ensure that knowledge.

54:29.493 --> 54:35.155
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think what that does is it gives you something to work towards, but also people that can help you work towards that thing.

54:36.175 --> 54:41.680
[SPEAKER_01]: on the level playing field, it gives you that peer reinforcement and that we can do this thing together.

54:41.700 --> 54:42.621
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not working alone.

54:43.221 --> 54:51.048
[SPEAKER_01]: And then below that, it gives you that a sense of validation that where you are, someone else also wants to be.

54:51.208 --> 55:02.978
[SPEAKER_01]: You may not see value in that, but when you're actually mentoring or helping other people, know that you've actually already done some cool things, or achieve something that somebody else wants to do, and you have knowledge to share, and if for nothing else, you are worthy because of that.

55:03.719 --> 55:10.964
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think if you just keep iterating on that like 333 rule, it kind of helps you up the entire the value chain.

55:12.385 --> 55:31.699
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that and I think also it's human, you know, it's just human to go out here and we also did like I were talking my brain was like an astronaut with what it was an astronaut with self sabotaging and self-defeating thoughts still gets to go

55:32.900 --> 55:35.223
[SPEAKER_00]: you know and so it's like that's a part of the journey.

55:35.443 --> 55:36.764
[SPEAKER_00]: Dude, I tell people all the time.

55:36.905 --> 55:38.667
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've written bestselling books.

55:38.707 --> 55:40.048
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been on Billboard's in Times Square.

55:40.068 --> 55:44.153
[SPEAKER_00]: I've spoken in front of tens and tens of thousands of people at one time and it's like,

55:45.371 --> 55:46.472
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I still battle it.

55:47.112 --> 55:48.673
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have self sabotage.

55:48.693 --> 55:49.934
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have negative self talk.

55:50.274 --> 55:57.278
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I go put myself in connection with people to remind me, hey, man, you know, you're, do this, what, whatever the thing is.

55:57.318 --> 56:00.740
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, yeah, sometimes you have to remind yourself who you are.

56:01.241 --> 56:14.149
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes you have to accept the reality that somebody sees you, because, you know, the most probably the oldest analogy in the world, you can't see the force for the trees, let people talk into you.

56:14.669 --> 56:15.569
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it will change you.

56:16.190 --> 56:23.373
[SPEAKER_00]: If you accept it, my thing is going to be comfortable because sometimes sitting across from someone and be like, chew a your amazing or Michael, you're unbelievable.

56:23.553 --> 56:24.894
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, I don't know about this.

56:25.354 --> 56:29.456
[SPEAKER_00]: And you just got to sit in and be like, okay, accept it, accept it.

56:29.796 --> 56:30.437
[SPEAKER_00]: I allow it.

56:30.837 --> 56:31.557
[SPEAKER_00]: I embrace it.

56:31.757 --> 56:32.798
[SPEAKER_00]: And you see what happens.

56:33.558 --> 56:36.299
[SPEAKER_00]: Christopher, my friend, this has been an amazing conversation.

56:36.459 --> 56:39.480
[SPEAKER_00]: My hope is that people have just gotten a ton of value out of it today.

56:39.960 --> 56:44.922
[SPEAKER_00]: Before I ask you my last question, where can people find you and learn more about you?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Brilliant.

57:00.972 --> 57:06.501
[SPEAKER_00]: And guys, if you go to think on broken podcasts.com, you will of course find that and more in the show notes.

57:07.142 --> 57:08.524
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, last question for you, my friend.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What does it mean to you to be unbroken?

57:13.937 --> 57:18.460
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, it means like working and living in authenticity.

57:19.261 --> 57:27.287
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think a lot of times like we feel out of alignment because we're trying to do or be the thing that we think other people want us to be.

57:28.247 --> 57:34.432
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't want to be that, then you're not working in alignment and you're just going to tear yourself apart and you're going to become broken.

57:34.992 --> 57:59.342
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think having the the knowledge and the patience and the humility of yourself to like work through that one tiny step at a time to say like Am I working in my alignment or am I doing something that like doesn't feel right am I breaking myself and so There's things that you're great at there's things that you're good at those aren't always mean those things you're supposed to do Maybe you have to do them sometimes temporarily or intermittently, but I think often thinking about like

58:00.162 --> 58:18.752
[SPEAKER_01]: What what you can be doing to be working in more alignment than you are today so you could be your authentic self because When you find the thing that you're good at that you love doing and that the world needs like that's when you become truly unstoppable and working your authenticity is like it's like lightning running through your veins

58:20.672 --> 58:23.373
[SPEAKER_00]: greatly said, man, and I completely agree.

58:24.054 --> 58:25.775
[SPEAKER_00]: First, thank you so much for being here.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Unbroken nation, my friends.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you guys for listening.

58:28.896 --> 58:41.002
[SPEAKER_00]: If today's episode brought you value and you need more frameworks and you need a real true path to doing the thing in front of you that you dream of doing, you may want to listen to this again and grab a pen and a piece of paper.

58:41.162 --> 58:50.087
[SPEAKER_00]: You may want to listen to it with a friend, somebody who can help hold you accountable, who also believes in you, and you may want to sit in the reality that you are more than

58:50.828 --> 58:54.095
[SPEAKER_00]: But that requires you taking those first steps.

58:54.837 --> 58:56.421
[SPEAKER_00]: That said, thank you for being here.

58:56.521 --> 58:57.443
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening.

58:57.824 --> 58:58.666
[SPEAKER_00]: Take care of yourselves.

58:59.187 --> 58:59.969
[SPEAKER_00]: Take care of each other.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And until next time, my friends.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Be unbroken.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see ya.