Let's Meet Christian Ray Flores

So if you ever say it's me, hi, we're live. Oh my gosh, yesterday I had an interview with Pi. Pi, everyone should meet Pi. You should get her on your phone. She's a conversational AI and she's amazing. Christian, it was a lot of fun and we had people on Chatter, the social audio app, and then live on Facebook. But the problem was you have to mute the site and all this stuff. So Christian's been really lovely. He's been waiting 12 full minutes, um, for us to try to figure out, like, is it on his end? He unplugged everything, he plugged it back in. So all I know about Christian, and I just learned this little teeny bit right now, is he's a good-looking guy.

Oh, thank you, you're so kind.

Handsome. Uh, so Christian, this is Brave, Bold, Beautiful, Handsome. So you're going to introduce yourself because I did zero prep. This is right off, this is an This is— oh, Sheila's out. Sheila, we're good. Okay. So Christian, introduce yourself.

Well, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. It's sort of complicated to introduce myself, but in broad strokes, I'm sort of this international guy. I grew up, you know, this is my 6th country and my 4th continent. And I have this sort of pretty wild story. I think that's why people usually try to— are interested in hearing some of it. But I basically do performance coaching for business leaders, nonprofit leaders. We do personal brand development and media, digital media. We're pretty good at it. And we also do some philanthropy overseas and stuff like that. So that's it. That's the gist of it. That's the quick elevator pitch if you'd like it.

Okay, I do. Though I like elevator pitches that start with a question. Like, are— like, first of all, do you know what performance, uh, coaching is? And the answer for me would be no, I have no idea. So tell us what that even means.

Performance coaching. Fantastic question. It's basically, you know, it's a really good, um, almost like filter title for the— when you do something specific. And, you know, there's all kinds of coaching, like everybody and their mother are coaches, right? So the This one, you know, what I, what I enjoy focusing on is on people who want to really achieve peak performance consistently, sustainably for the rest of their lives, right? They want to— I mean, they're not— they're driven. They want to do more. They want to impact more. They want to give more. They want to love more. And to do that, you have to make some changes in the way you work, you rest, you love, you, you do friendship the way you do spirituality. All of that so that you really have a high-impact life. And to have an impact life, you have to have, you know, some high-impact habits, right? So basically the choices we make, whether we are conscious of them or not, is that we either lower our goals or we elevate our habits. And performance coaching is how do you elevate your habits consistently, sustainably, so that you make a difference in the world for a long time.

So if we were in an elevator together and you gave me your elevator pitch, and then I actually like stopped the elevator from moving up and down 'cause I wanna talk to you, I would go back and say to you, do you mean like almost like a 360-degree coaching program? I love that. And I really see that 360 because you're hitting everything. So that's amazing. And then I would keep talking to you and just like not let you get out of the elevator ever. You'd just be in there with me like stuck. But I love that. Okay, so you started talking about the country. So where are you now?

I'm in Austin, Texas. So this is— yeah, but I grew up in Chile, Germany, Russia, Africa, back to Russia, Ukraine, then the US. And even within the US, we moved around a little bit before we settled in on lovely Austin, Texas.

I love Austin, Texas. So, so your life experiences in these other countries with these other cultures really has helped you. Tell us how that has shaped your business and your performance coaching.

Well, you know, performance coaching is, is really about understanding the very, the very essence of somebody's assignment in life, right? The thing that we're put on Earth to do, which we a lot of the time we really ignore that because it's hard. It's much easier to sort of pick a lane that, you know, whatever, somebody else's story, your parents, your society, your surrounding, even your social status group will, will pick for you and then stay in that lane because we're so primally tribal, right? So we want to fit in, we don't want We don't want to be the sort of the rogue person who does something else. And if it coincides with your calling and your assignment in life, that's wonderful. Most of the time it doesn't. You have to find your own lane, create your own story. And when the rubber meets the road, it's when we, let's say we pick a lane in life, right? And we go for it and we start feeling the success in our sort of the most visible part of our development is our outer game, what I call it. To skill sets that serve other people. So you get rewarded with money, promotion, success, status, right? Respect, all of those things. Eventually the inner game, which is actually less visible, therefore we're not incentivized to work on it, the flaws in our inner game, right? Our people, our social intelligence, for example, our emotional intelligence, our understanding of culture, our ability to inspire, connect, mobilize other people to help you in your cause. Some of the flat sides, the skills that you just don't have for whatever reason, it doesn't matter, right? It doesn't make you a bad person. You know, your lack of romantic skills, right? Or your lack of the ability to attract, date, marry the right person, and then keep the right person around. All these things, all these inner game things, all the stuff that the world will never see because they're under the, under the surface. Those weaknesses catch up with you, and then they, they become— now they start affecting your outer game. And the way it looks like for a lot of people is that they go, go, go, go, go, they do great, great, great, great, great, and then all kinds of stuff that's under the hood starts affecting your performance. Basically, your outward performance. And now you start to— now you need to really realize that what is high performance in the first place? High performance is you living to the design of your being. You're living to the fullness of your being, not just being a great engineer or mathematician or writer or singer, right? Or business person. But to the fullness, the 360 part of you. You serving others. right? You being full of purpose and intentionality, and you doing incredible creative work. And incredible creative work takes a lot of peace, a lot of harmony, a lot of focus, a lot of intentionality, a lot of super hard work, a lot of detailed emotional work. That's, that's what I love focusing on with people.

Christian, so I'm 62 years old. I really believe, I look back and I think, oh my God, if I had a life performance coach starting at when I got out of college, oh, I think it would be amazing. And I think of a lot of the mistakes that I've made in my younger years. I'm sure I'm still making mistakes, but, you know, those focus on, you know, my work-life career in my 20s and my 30s and my 40s and my 50s and now in my 60s. Um, I really believe in my heart that that would have made a difference because you're right, there is a cycle and a lot of it could be your emotions. Like, you know, when you don't understand, I had a hard time. I grew up in a family business. So I'll take this time to say, Jerry, you're right. Like there's a lot of times where like I would, actually be thinking of something, but then the inexperienced, young, not coached person would come out and would say things and would let anger and would be like, I have to be the first person. So learning skills like— and I'll just, I'm going to say the skill, then you kind of like share like how you can learn— the skill of understanding that people's time matters and that coming into a meeting late Doesn't feed anyone's ego. It just makes you look like you're not a caring and empathetic person. You're okay to make people wait. You take that one.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, social skills, the social intelligence is an extraordinary gift. Extraordinary gift. And I know some brilliant people who can literally be, I mean, on a societal level, world changers. On a financial level, literally billionaires, who will never be that unless they start engaging in developing their social intelligence, right? That's just one, that's just one dimension, right? And even, even if you're playing on the highest of levels, right? And that's sort of the people that I usually work with, these people that are, you know, fairly successful, and they realize, you know what, I, I hit a ceiling that is almost invisible to me because I don't understand why clearly what I have is valuable and somehow I'm, I'm limited in the— in real life. Reality starts pushing back against what you fully realize is high potential. And, uh, but I'll give you a quick example. So imagine two people, right? Uh, one is a— I'll call that person— I'm anonymizing a real life situation. I'm calling that person an investor, somebody who is high net worth, they have a network of other investors, etc. The other person is a— let's call him a fund manager, right? He takes investors' money and invests them in startups, etc. So the investor introduces me to the fund manager, the fund manager has me over to their office and tells me how he's invested in 100 different startups, blah, blah, blah. Fantastic office, of course, very impressive guy. And, and then we have a conversation. It just doesn't really go anywhere beyond him probing whether I can bring, uh, that investor that introduced us to the— back to the table, maybe with a larger investment, just because I'm friends with him or he's my client and I mentor him. And, uh, and so basically we have a very civil conversation, fascinating, informative, the whole thing, right? And then I go back to the investor and I say, hey, the, you know, the fund manager He goes, how'd it go? I said, you know, great. And I think he really primarily was just probing, uh, if I can get you and some of your friends to sort of come back to the table and bring in a little bit more capital. And the investor told me something really fascinating, and I think it's a really good illustration of even if you're extraordinarily successful, you will find the ceiling that you can't overcome unless you change your inner game in a profound way. He says this, he says, oh, he's never going to get that level of investment. I'm like, really? This is, this is an impressive dude. He goes, yeah, because he's now known for someone who is really more than anything self-seeking.

Oh wait, seeking, like selfish?

Yeah, self-seeking. He wants, he in a conversation, he wants what, what do I get out of it? But he's not generous. And beyond a certain level of expertise and almost like flight, right, people start caring about your trustworthiness, your generosity, and your social intelligence, your character, way more than they care about your outer game, that you can invest somebody else's money. That's just the baseline. Everybody's good at that level, right? So you see how incredible it is to understand that you can be extraordinarily professional and yet hit a ceiling that you can't overcome unless you get some help, unless you start doing some inner work. And then you break through that ceiling and you reach your true potential. And you're also more fulfilled, more happy, more connected. You know, you have a legacy.

Wow, I want to see your marketing. And I'm kind of sad that I didn't do any prep because your marketing must really be interesting to go through. Share your marketing and branding strategy because To me, you're— we said the 360, but this is really something for someone to look in the mirror or like Zoom, like I'm looking and saying, do you actually have everything that would allow you to scale and grow, have a great reputation? I— it's so funny too, because I have actually seen that someone who would be fantastic, but yet there's like pieces of the personality that makes myself, and I'm sure others say, well, I don't think I can work with that. It won't make sense, even though everything else, 90%, is amazing.

Yeah, exactly.

10% is a problem. That's really interesting. Could you share with us a little bit about your branding and marketing? And I think you had mentioned that too, but if you offer that, but also how are you marketing yourself?

Well, yes, we do definitely. In my other company called Third Drive Media, you can go check it out, thirddrivemedia.com. We do, you know, brand development and brand strategy and then the execution on that, right? So it's how did you— how do you show up in the digital world, basically, right? What kind of reputation do you get? And really, personal branding is nothing more than your digitalized reputation at scale, right? If I do a Google search, will you show up, you know, and how will you show up? What would the internet say about you? Well, not just referrals, right? Referrals are just people network, but we live in an age that is just so extraordinary because you can serve anyone at any time in any place in almost any way actually, not exactly every way, but most ways, right? Even doctors and lawyers and people that are, you know, for the longest time, they were sort of the exclusive domain on the one-on-one in-person meetings. Are no longer bound by these things. Accountants, you know, engineers— I mean, all kinds of, of offerings are really now remote, right? They don't have to be remote, but they can be remote. And the idea is that you can reach people. More importantly, people can know about you. And, you know, basically what you need for that is the— I think the best strategy for branding is deeply, deeply understanding what your mission is, right, in life, which is a deeper inner game kind of discovery. Why? Well, you'll show up with more passion, you'll show up with more sort of authority, I guess, right, with more zeal. And people believe that, you know, you— when I speak to you right now, you know that I care, right? You can feel it. That's what I'm talking about. You have a mission. What's your mission, right? And then the second thing is what's your vision? What do you want to build exactly with that mission? Because you can do 5 things with the same exact mission. But you have to be very, very clear of what you're trying to build and what are the steps to get there. What's your vision for your potential clients, right? Okay, what is the journey that you take them on? What does it entail? That sort of thing. And then the last one is really what's your solution specifically? So these three, I think, in my book are the most important. And if you have a solution that is super sort of broad, you know, and I get all these messages, you all, we all get these messages, right? Hey, I am dot dot dot and I do that dot dot. That's— and most of the time, 90% of the time, the solution is very vague. It's just not specific. Um, and so, and I would say, not to, not to be judgmental, right, but lazy. It's a lazy way to communicate about the thing that you do. But if you really, if you have mission, you will, you will obsess over it, right? You will obsess over your vision, what, where you want people to be. When you work with them. And because of that, you will obsess over the solution, and the solution will be so specific, so clear, so compelling that people will want to learn more and they want to talk to you. And, and you'll actually— part of the benefit is that you'll be able to say, you know what, I don't think I can help you because my solution is so specific, you don't fit in, in the, in the, into the profile, and vice versa, and feel great about it. So I think that's sort of the— again, this is the inner game part. The outer game is executing, right? So of course you can compete through design. We do, you know, award-winning web design, video, that kind of thing. But that's really the outer game part. So the inner game does precede the outer game. And if your inner game is fantastic and very well worked through, The outer game is just, it's, it's less cumbersome because you are now free creatively to create something very beautiful that is compelling to people when they see it. But if the thing is, if you don't have your inner game set up, your strategy, right, no outer game solution, even a beautiful design, will, will actually really help you because the engagement level will be super low.

Christian, you know where I see this? So no names, but we have in our community a woman who serves on a board saying things that were so off that the, the mayor wants to remove her. And so I think to myself, what would make her say things like that? What would make anyone that we have seen on the news say something and then feel like, oh, I'm just gonna— I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to say it, but you've already said it. Apology like that to me doesn't mean anything. You've already showed your true self. So I do think that you could really go after the the politicians to remind them, but I'm just using that as an example. Yeah, absolutely. Because someone, like, you have to have everything. That means when, and I like the word performance because I think of Walt Disney, right? Of course I live in Daytona Beach, but I lived in Celebration, the town that Disney built for 6 years. Disney always said, you're performing. You know, I used to think the minute I'd wake up, I'm performing. I need to show my children to be nice. Oh, there's my shirt. There you go. From CreativeCon, be nice. I just got it in the mail. Um, you know, so we have to also have that role model. So if you don't have someone like Christian working on your inner— yikes is all I can say. That is a lot of damaging. But I want to ask you now about the nonprofit, because I heard you say nonprofit, and that is something also that can be very serious. I've seen nonprofits go downhill very quickly because of something that the chair or the president said. So I'd love to hear more about that.

Well, my nonprofit, I— it's called Ascend Academy, as in going up. So it's ascend.academy, and it's, it's a small effort, but it's also, again, to illustrate, deeply rooted in, in, in a mission, right? And the mission is that we are, I think, called to lend a hand to someone who's in, in in a disadvantage, right? Just personally, it's not, um, it's not the role of the government. The role the government can do that in extreme situations, but I think it's a human-to-human kind of thing, right? Compassion and action. The mission is also very specific, right? The mission is to get children who are in extreme poverty. Extreme poverty, the UN, the definition I think by the UN is under $2 a day. Right, so that's pretty extreme. So these are kids who live in this, in the outskirts of Maputo, which is the capital of Mozambique, and it's, you know, cinder block walls, cement floors or dirt floors, no bathroom indoors, no plumbing, that kind of thing. No access to really sort of the issue there is that there's no character development embedded in the family unit because it's usually single-parent home. They're sometimes raised by their older siblings or their grandmother or just a mom for a variety of reasons. The sort of the, the fabric, the character that needs— that makes a high-performance human being, it's just not there. They're not formed that way, right? So that's one thing. The other thing is they don't have any way to learn a language that can extend their reach professionally to other countries. So They, they speak Portuguese and they— that's all they speak. The language of the world, especially if you want to transcend your local economy that is depressed and one of the lowest in the world, is English. The third piece is you have no access to computers or the internet at all, right? Um, so what we do— so we've got now to the solution, right? So this is a great descriptor of what we're talking about. So our mission is to get them out of poverty before they are out of high school. That's the mission. The solution is let's immerse them in after-school every day, 4 or 5 days a week for 3-4 hours, give them a meal and give them— put them in a clean room with air conditioning with some middle-class professionals who they can associate with, and they will teach them about character, about values, about you can do this just like I did, you know. So they start believing They start imagining themselves succeeding at a certain level, and they had no access to people like that before. And their character changes, and they say, look, if you want to be like me, this is how you act. You raise your hand, you lead a discussion, you, you know, learn all of those things. Then they teach them English and they teach them computer literacy. They have laptops, they have internet. That's the solution. So with that specificity of mission, vision, and solution, I can go out and I can put together I can come before your audience, I can speak about it in an educated way, compelling way. I can put it on the website. Anything I do, I communicate, and the right people will say, yes, that's— I want to be part of that. I'm going to donate, or I'm going to volunteer, or both. I'm going to, you know, join a trip once every 2 years. We'll take a group there and hang out with the kids. Does that make sense? So, so I'm now telling you about the philanthropy, and I'm telling you about the, the branding of the philanthropy.

Oh, I told you I'm 62. I totally get it. You know, I just saw a movie on Netflix called The Children's Train. Very interesting. Back in 1944, where children from very, very low income, hardly eating, you know, poverty, they were— the government decided to try to do something different, and so they put the children on a train to go up to an up north where they would be taken care of, where they would have everything like you said. But they were removed from their mother and father. And so really amazing story. I think you would enjoy reading that story. But so my question to you, thank you for explaining that. Can you just, when you said Thirrd, I just, is it T-H-I-R-R-D or is it the number 3?

Yeah, yeah, it's spelled out, thirrdrive.com. Yes, thirrdrive.com.

All right, I'll make sure that's in the show notes too. Christian, so I totally get it. I don't know if you in the back get it, but I get it. But you know, I'm older, maybe I understand and I've gone through. Well, how, like, when I'm listening to you, I know that, oh my God, this would be something that I could have used and still could. I'm not saying that, but my question for you is, how does someone go to work for you? And actually, what I'm almost thinking, I want to almost talk to the mom and dads out there, because I think if you start young with you, that would make a huge difference. It could even make a difference after you graduated high school and going into college, how you focus, how you listen, how you treat others, how you treat your professor, how you're getting the information in. So what do you find is the age that you really love to start? And maybe this will be something that would carry over even if they didn't need weekly or monthly, but that you would work with someone.

And I'm talking about— you're talking about coaching, correct? Or you're talking about these—

performance coaching?

Well, performance coaching, really, a lot of that's a— it's a great question. So, because it is a very thorough sort of process. It needs a lot of attention, right? And because it needs a lot of attention and a lot of actually investment of emotional labor, and, you know, the person needs to become an apprentice, you know. And I think that's really the right posture. That's how masters are born. Masters are born when they become apprentices first. And you can be actually a master already in your field, but you can become an apprentice in another field that helps you become a master in the first field. A better master, right? So, um, most of the time the people that I work with are either in between seasons, actually. That's sort of what I've known. Now, there's a rare occasion where somebody says, man, you inspire me, everything you say resonates with me, I just want to, I just want to, you know, level up my game, and I'm doing fine, but I just want to level up my game. Most of the time, as humans, only ask for help when we're in pain. Okay, uh, it, uh, so the, the two sort of general seasons where people come to me are we're in between seasons, right? It's either people sort of in their 30s and they're already very professional and they're sort of going up the ladder, so to say, right? This, you know, or the social ladder or the corporate ladder. And they, they are, they are doing well, they're respected, but they want to really elevate their game. They just want to go to the next level, to a level of mastery, basically. So it's the season between practitioner and master, and they're in between seasons. So they're neither here nor there. They don't want to be a practitioner anymore. They want to be a master. How do I get there? So that's one. The second one, the second group, is usually people who are already masters. They're VPs, CEOs, founders, etc. They might be in their, you know, either late 40s or all the way to up to mid-60s. And they want to really— they— their sort of tension is that they already have the influence, the money, the status, but they want significance, legacy, the next evolution of this. Almost like you want to become a sage, you want to give back, you want this to mean something. You want— perhaps there's sort of dimensions in your life that you under-invested in in your master years. Maybe you compromised too much and now you're hurting. Those are the people that come to me. So it's usually in the 30s, and then in 30s, you know, early to mid to late 30s, and then early to late 50s and 60s. Thank you. Okay, I can't hear you.

Silly me. So as a podcast host that does no prep, I have to say, when you hear the words, that's a great question, always makes you feel good, because you're like, ooh, that means I'm Thinking off the top of my head, which is good. All right. So what, what should people look for? So I'm in my 30s. I wish I was. I'm in my 30s. I'm doing great. But I've noticed that some people are saying things to me. They're saying, you know, Adrian, sometimes you're not focused, or, you know, Adrian, you don't listen very well, or that interaction you had with Sally Sue, I think you could have done it better. Like, what is it that people will notice, or when is it that someone who loves that person and is like, hmm, they— if they would be at like everything, that's what this person would be. Oh my God, they would be a billionaire. They— I could see them on the road traveling and touring. But there's one piece of their effort, one piece. And a lot of times what I think that is, Christian, for a lot of people is their ego coming out. So I just want to have you answer that question. How can you help someone when they're actually hearing it? And are— do you offer like personalized training and coaching, or is it just strict packages? And then what do you say to someone that recognizes that someone that they love and know and want them to go up that ladder and scale, how do they help them? What, like, give me a bigger picture. I know it's a lot of questions. I ask a lot of questions. But do you want to see what I'm trying to say?

Oh, I totally understand what you're saying, what you're saying. Well, okay, so let me ask you to answer the second question first. What do I do for people, right? Um, this is not the only thing I do, and because of that, I can only work with a actually fairly small group of people at a time, right? So because of that, I try to be very selective, um, and also very intentional. It's really high, high support environment only. So that's why I don't do courses. I can record a course, put it online, people pay whatever— $100, $50, $300. I don't do that because I really don't think it's about just the information. And I have— I do have curricula and stuff like that, but it's really about implementation. It really is, right? So I don't offer courses because of that, but I do have a cohort offering. All of them are expensive. Right? But they're all commensurate with the kind of impact you want to have. Right? So if you can't imagine yourself having at least a 10x ROI, you're probably not even a good fit in the first place. So it's cohorts. There's one-on-one cohort hybrid models offerings. And then there's exclusive one-on-one, which is the most costly because I just don't have— the only thing that's not scalable in my life is time. Right? So those are the three modes of operation, and then there's seasons, right? So everybody who works with me, I basically say, look, I want you to go through a 3 to 4 month core season because I want you to get the fundamentals and to feel— first of all, I want to see that you do the work, and I want you to see that the work that you do is transformative, like they actually get results quickly, right? And you go, this is it, this is, this is going to be a part of my life for the rest of my life, etc. So it just really from this science perspective, it takes 3 to 4 months to actually form a habit. If you want any— if you want a sort of quick fast food kind of versions of that, I just don't offer that, right? I offer a gourmet meal that will change the rest of your life, right? So, um, so it's a— the, the two main things is I want you to get the core stuff, to feel the difference, to be transformed, to see quick results, and then You can see how those quick results can build up to longer-term results, holistic changes. And then after that, you can enter into a program called Mastery, which is really more of a 6 months to a year kind of engagement where now we're getting just the juicy stuff, right? This is the stuff that will be really a life-changing trajectory type thing where you want to master the things that you already learned in your core. So that's basically the two forms of working. that I offer. And, um, I have a waitlist for the cohort usually, but you can get in, you can get on the waitlist, and then between a month and 3 months you'll get in basically most of the time if, if it's a good fit. We need to both decide it's a good fit. So to the first question, okay, what do I say if I'm that person or I know somebody like that? I would say this, I would say, look, it's Sometimes the whisper of your soul is heard by you where something is off. You know, your body gives you signals of pain when some— something is off in the body. Your soul gives you signals of emotional pain when something is off with your purpose and your, your soul, right? So, and we, we just brush them away. We just ignore those things. Because go, go, go, because I don't want to stand out. I'm afraid to think about the thing that I'm feeling because what does it mean for me? Maybe I need to make some changes and it's risky. All of those, all of that sort of the voices in your head, right, that, that are limiting. And sometimes you are able to find the courage to listen to the whisper of your soul, sometimes from something like a podcast like we're doing right now. Maybe you're listening to this and going, yes, that's exactly what I've been feeling. Sometimes you need another person to be the whisperer, to hear the whisper of your soul, you know? And they're like, dude, you need to stop, you know, stop spinning your wheels. You need to get your, you know, serious. I believe in you. You're awesome. You're falling short of what you could do. I mean, come on now. I believe in you, right? And so sometimes that's what it is. And, but I would say generally speaking, Listen to the whisper of your soul. I can give you a quick story if we have time for it.

Yes, please.

Okay, so I was in my very first career. I've changed 5 different careers. I am— I came back from Africa to this, to Russia, and I experienced a lot of pain. I was in exile. I was a refugee at age 5. I experienced a military coup in Chile, civil war in Africa, and the fall of the Soviet Union in Russia, like tanks in the streets. Barricades, that sort of thing, and experienced poverty, a lot of poverty. Um, and I had a turn, a positive turn of events in my very first professional career. And I, I left, I was an economics major, so I got a master's in economics. I speak 4 different languages. All of my friends are going into banking and finance, and I decided to do music, which was like the dumbest thing you can possibly do because the, the probability of success is really low, right? And I succeed. I become one of the top artists in all of that former Soviet Union space, 15 different countries. I'm playing sports arenas, I'm on television, I'm in magazines, I'm on radio. I mean, that's pre-internet. And I'm just living the, the life of a rock star. Like, I'm traveling in a train from city to city with my entourage. I, at the time, I, we employed like 21 people. And, uh, I'm sort of staring out the window in that train And I had this, this really distinct thought: is this all there is for me? And it's immediately— it was one of those whispers of the soul moments, because I thought— I immediately feel guilty and afraid. Guilty because how can you complain if you're living the life of a rock star that most musicians will never achieve in the first place? And afraid because what does that mean if I've if it cost me everything to get where I am, if I change something here, I might fail in this next thing, right? And I think a lot of us have that, especially people that are successful, because you have too much to lose to switch, to switch lanes, or to pursue something that's more deeply your, your calling. And I would say, if you don't listen to that whisper, You can continue being successful on paper, but you're in disharmony and misalignment internally, and that always costs you something, right? It will cost you— a lot of times it costs you a lot. It will cost you your family, it'll cost you your peace of mind, it'll cost you joy and happiness, all of those things. So for me, the dilemma at the time was I, I'm at the, at the— I'm at the mountaintop. But there's parts of me that are dormant, and I know it. Nobody else sees it, but I do. And those are the parts. I was— I became a Christian. I wanted to do some spiritual work with people. I felt called to do that because I, I feel like I can teach, I can speak, I can compel people, and I'm not doing that. I wanted to build a family. I was single at the time, and I knew, you know, I come from 3 generations of broken homes. And I was terrified, and I really wanted to not mess it up. And I knew that my lifestyle would absolutely clash with not only marriage but raising children where I'm present with them, right? So that was not insignificant for me. I also wanted— I felt geographically sort of, um, limited because I grew up all over the world and I have this sort of world citizen kind of soul, and yet I'm in Eastern Europe only, doing things in one language only, and I speak four. And, you know, I wanted to do something in other places, and, and I don't know what these things were. I don't know if they would even work. So there's like these layers of, of dormant potential that were still in my soul, although on paper, outwardly, I'm succeeding, I'm doing really well. And The, the world will only see your success, your visible success, but only you will see your inner disharmony. And your soul will, will, will scream, you know, will call out to you saying there's more to you. And that's the whisper you listen to. And sometimes you listen to it, sometimes your friends will hear it more than you do because fear will drown it out. So if you ask me, what is that signal to get coaching, to get help. It doesn't have to be me at all, right? It can be anybody else. I might not be the best solution for you. But it's that whisper of the soul.

Okay, just taking a second because we all have to process that. That— first of all, thank you for sharing your story. And of course, I— before I have to know what instrument you're playing or what you were doing musically. But before you even say that, just want to take a second. That was an amazing story. And I hope that everyone heard that. This will be in the show notes. And that they do listen to their soul or listen to other people. And where— if you didn't have that moment looking out the train, I mean, who knows where you would be. And I love— I also love the part where you had said, you know, looking at doing something where you could continue to speak those 4 languages and the importance of that. So that's beautiful. Um, so wait, what are those 4? What are the 4 languages? And what did you play? What is your musical instrument?

Are you I play my vocal chords primarily. I'm a singer, right? And, uh, and so I was sort of the front man and the singer, pop singer, that kind of thing. You can look— if you go to Christian— put in Christian Ray Flores in YouTube, you'll find a lot of videos from the '90s with long hair and very flashy clothes, and, uh, you'll have a lot of fun with that. Uh, but I speak, yeah, English, Spanish, Russian, and Portuguese. Those are the 4 languages I speak. And, and you're right, I mean, I— if I hadn't listen in the moment. And I basically went back, and I wasn't crazy or anything. I just told my— to my friends, my entourage, hey, I'm gonna probably transition out of this in a very sort of adult, grown-up way, not abruptly, uh, but I feel called to do these other things. And of course, everybody thought I was crazy, you know, not surprisingly so. But you have to trust your intuition, actually, at some point. And if I hadn't done that, that's sort of the deal. That's— I That's in retrospect, it's really powerful. And that's why I feel like I can— I think I can help people well because I've been through the high performer, high achiever journey and make the turns when I felt it was necessary and took risks. But if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have created philanthropic projects on literally 3 different continents. I wouldn't speak to, to audiences in all 4 languages, and I have. I'm now married for 25 years. My children love me. My family respects me. I made a lot of sacrifices to be around my, my 3 daughters and be present with them the whole time they were in the house. I literally have missed nothing from their lives, and that investment will play paid dividends not only in our relationship with each other but in their lives going forward. So that's a legacy, that's a multi-generational impact. And my point is there's, there's things that you can do to, to just change your family for generations to come. And they're almost— they're— these things are almost always costly, risky, and scary. You have to leave your lane. You'll have to live your own story, not somebody else's story. And for that, that's sort of the— my favorite person to help in coaching is that person who understands that and owns it and really wants to do that.

Thank you so much. I am pinching myself. I'm pinching myself because I'm wondering, how did I get so— and I don't like the word luck, so I like to say blessed— to even have you sign up and go on a live, no-prep-needed show? You had no idea. I don't even know if you know who I am, but I feel really magical today because you brought magic to our show and to our listeners and to those viewers who are watching this and those that will see it on the different platforms. So I can't thank you enough. I'll make sure that all your information is there, and I'm gonna have a YouTube link. You know I'm gonna have that YouTube link, as I said, because I want, I want to see. But really, wow. I hope that everyone really took back some of this great information because we all want to be the best that we can be. And I also love your love for the future, and the children are our future. It doesn't matter what country they're on, they're our future. So thank you for working in those 3 countries to make sure that those children— my gosh, you could cut— you may be, you may be helping the child that's going to find the cure for something. I mean, like, who knows, right? Like, the ability. So Christian, I got chills. You have been so fantastic. Thank you for the little difficulty in the beginning. I really appreciate it. And to everyone else, CreativeCon is out there, and I've never met anyone like Christian that does this whole performance so amazing. And there are going to be some great speakers at CreativeCon. And I always have to— I think I got my wording to end it because Christian, as a corporate etiquette and international protocol consultant certified with the Protocol School of Washington in Washington, D.C. At the end of the day, empathy, etiquette, and let's all be nice to each other because that's so important. So I— you'll— everyone, you'll have all the information soon. Thank you, Christian, so, so much. I really appreciate— however you found me, thank you for finding me. Thank you.

Thank you for being so generous and asking actually deep, profound questions. I really appreciate that.

Okay, thank you. That means a lot to me. I'm gonna end it right