276: Chris Burns — Finding Your Purpose

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done? I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have talent. Talk to Doxatant and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatant.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatant.com Bill g. One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. Oh hello. Hello again. We're talking all today about how to get clear, how to get your vision clear, how to keep it clear, how to keep it alive. Over time you may struggle with either being clear at all or then keeping it alive for yourself. We're going to talk about both those things. Listen in. Hi again everybody. My name is Bill Gallagher. I'm the Scaling Coach, host of the Scaling Up Business podcast. We bring episodes like this every week to you, our gurus, experts and superheroes. As you can see in the world of Scaling up, we're going to talk to people about that. So today's conversation should be really interesting and we're going to get into that. Just a minute reminder that all these and more you can find wherever you get your online content like this. But if you go to scalingcoach.com you can get some additional free tools and things like that that we've got a copy of of our Scaling up book and like that that there@scalingcoach.com all right. All right. I'm joined now by Chris Burns who is runs a Mastermind Men program curriculum. Did I say that right? Mastered man curriculum. And he's got some interesting things to share with us and you can tell he's colorful and interesting with you're wearing kind of a groovy headband there. So we're going to get all into all your story, but why don't you talk about that because that's the headband in the room. Yeah, I love it.

I always love to give people a reason to check out other formats of content. So you're welcome Bill and thank you everyone for tuning in. Bill, thanks for having me on. This headband really came as a form of self expression for me. I was in Tulum earlier this year in February. Tulum Mexico, and we were having a retreat, my wife and I, and it was a beautiful experience. We had some spiritual people there, and there was just some really cool opening.

If you haven't been to Tulum, you should all get to Tulum real quick. It's super fun.

Yes. We're going back in about a month, and it's a beautiful, beautiful place. So we're having these experiences. And I got this flash of insight, of clarity, so to speak, on how do I truly be my authentic self? Authenticity is a world that's thrown around a lot these days. And for me, I said, well, I really love spirituality. I also love the science. I love the engineering background that I have, Bill. So I said, how can I combine the two of those and combine the science of spirituality and crystals and magnetic and electromagnetic properties of things, of devices, things like that, and be a front runner, a pioneer for those things. And so I looked online, was looking for different devices, headbands, things that I could wear, and came across this one. I said, let's. Let's test it out. I love being the life laboratory and life experiment to test on myself and then recommend to other people based on my experiences.

So you were looking for something that was a token and an expression of something, like a sign, something that you could wear in that way.

Exactly, exactly. And crystals themselves, I don't know if you know much about, like, semiconductors, but they're built with silicon. And so that's a form of crystal, and it has the ability to store, transmit energy and be programmed with specific frequencies. And so when people, spiritual people, hold a crystal, they're doing it not just because it's. What is it? Placebo effect, but there's actually serious properties that are happening there that allow that crystal to modulate someone's frequency in their body, the cellular function, the brainwave capacity. So it's not just for looks and accessories, but also, how do I amplify my being and my presence in the world?

Yeah, it's great. And, you know, it's. I love the combo, too, because with the hairstyle, your hairstyle, hairstyle and that together, you've definitely got a very, like, superhero kind of an experience somewhere between Lex Luthor and. What's his name, from the. The Android character with the vision. Vision, yeah.

Marvel. Yep, yep.

Come on. And. And I especially love. Goes to one of our values that you're like. You're loose about it, right? Like, I can say, hey, what's the deal with the freaking headband, dude? And you can. You can challenge, like, oh, this is really special to me. And it's cool and, and that kind of thing. And, and, and so I love that. And we said getting ready. It's a form of self expression. Yep. And I'm all about that.

So I've, I've heard people say, oh, it's like a king's crown. It's like Wonder Woman's headband. I'm like, it's okay. Whatever, whatever. You know what triggers in your mind or someone's mind. It's branding, right? It's, it's association with other things that people typically. I desire it to be something that's a positive association. If that doesn't happen, that's okay. But it's, I think these are the things that we can do to, to express ourselves, but also brand ourselves as unique individuals in today's marketplace. Bill?

Well, we've had Qualman on before and, you know, he's got his green glasses. We have Dave Rendell arriving here tonight. He's. He wears pink, right. Like, we've all got our, our like shtick or whatever. People say to me, oh, your glasses. Right. It's funny because these glasses I pretty much only wear on the computer. Right. And I was just at a in person meeting and people were like, oh, I almost didn't recognize you because I didn't have glasses on. Right.

Yeah.

I should get like a clear bifocal version of these. I really need them at this age to be able to see, see things on my screen very well. Like I'm kind of hopeless to read anything.

Adaptability, man. That's the key.

Adaptability. All right, so before we get into this idea of the clarity of the vision and then keeping that vision alive, things that I think are really important and I spent a lot of time talking about. I'd love to hear your approach to them. Let's talk kind of about how do you get involved in this Mastermind for Men and coaching men and working that and, and just a shout out, like I said beforehand, hey, we have a lot of female listeners, so we're not just speaking about things. Your particular work is, is targeted towards men. But we are actually, we, we're tailing this message to everyone. So, yes, women do not tune out right now. There's something here for you. Amen.

Amen. And for me, Bill, I worked with, I would say majority women before, I would say about the last year and you know, getting into, into this Mastering the Man within and men Mastermind really came as a place of. Something was missing in my life. Not that Anything's wrong or bad or anything like that, but that I didn't have a sense of camaraderie and brotherhood in my life. And I, I knew that would amplify me and challenge me to be a better version of myself. And I'm super grateful because my, my wife, she's a women's coach, host women's groups and circles and podcasts and all this stuff. Women have a lot of support, a lot of visible support for them to join a circle or join a community and get the encouragement or just sisterhood that they're looking for. Men, it's a little bit harder these days. I believe we're moving in the right direction. But ultimately, last year, when I had left a five year partnership and interviewing around 800 guests on my last podcast over three and a half years, I said, what do I desire to do next? And for me, kind of facing one of my, I don't want to say demons, but a shadow of being maybe a little uncomfortable around successful, good looking, intimidating men. Intimidating, quote, unquote, was my area of growth. And I said, let's, let's cultivate a great community where I'm challenged to be a better version of myself every day. So created it and been attracting some amazing guys in there. But community is really the core ethos there, the core message that I'm promoting and how important it is today in a world of disconnection.

So it's interesting. I have another question for you, but I think it's useful to just call out first that there is something definitely to that. Like, my wife has a lot of girlfriends and they connect and they do stuff and they connect in a particular way. And she said to me somewhat recently, like, oh, you should do more like guy friends things, you know, and of course, we didn't do a lot of things in the last year with COVID and everything got a little bit dislocated and weird. But I actually do a ton of things with mostly guys, but not. I have a lot of actual guy friends. But the way that we connect is really different. And it's definitely overall more transactional, like, oh, we have something to talk about, something to do. It isn't, you know, I'll say, hey, let's get some lunch sometime or let's get a beer. And then we, we'll get together and they'll be like, okay, I got this. Okay. Okay, I gotta go. Yeah, we did our business and it's not just, hey, hang out, how are you? How are you feeling? What's going on? That's a much more feminine dynamic kind of a thing of.

Yeah, yeah. The masculine bonds through challenge, through adversity, through common tasks and. And goals and missions. So going. Going out, you know, the army or military, there's really strong bonds because they're facing constant adversities every. You know, and teams, sports teams, there's constant adversity to overcome their opponents and win and create victory. And so men today, there's a lot of. There's a lot of not. Not real, not substantive challenges like video games. Especially for my generation, millennials, it's not. Not substantive. So those rites of passage, that bonding, those challenges, going out into the wilderness and facing that as brothers, I feel so important. And also the ability to sit down and share about what's going on in our world and open up. I think it's definitely 80, 20 as far as the bonding experiences of challenge, of growth through challenge. That's what I believe men require more than ever. And just sitting down, having potlucks. We have monthly potlucks here in Las Vegas, where we mastermind, where we share our challenges, where we share our victories, where we share what can we do to support each other? So I think both are important.

So I find. Tell me if I'm right or wrong or what you notice about this. But I find that as men, we mostly need an excuse. So we watch a game together.

Go.

Do we go fishing? We do some. We need, like, we can't just say, come over and hang out and have a potluck. That's way too. We can't say, let's just have happy hour. Let's have a coffee and just talk and reconnect. It's been so long. That is just not something we say. Say, hey, do you want to watch the game together? Hey, do you want to go here? Do you want to go riding? And then along the way, we have those moments where we talk about what's really going, where we talk about how we're feeling and doing and that kind of thing. But, you know, it's kind of like you're. You're out there fishing, and you drop your line and you lean over and you go. So we're breaking up five years while we're here. So I got the cancer. How's your colon? You know, there's like, that kind of.

Yep.

I think, like, we need that. We're not totally. Like, we have to create excuses, some structure for it. Great. So. So how do you even get interested in that? Like, what was your career like before you. You didn't start off as a little boy going, I want to run men's groups.

And no, I think that the big thing for me, Bill, was when I was in. In high school especially, I felt super inadequate, super shy, afraid of the world. I was really discouraged from being loud and proud and a big alpha. I compared myself to other guys. I felt like a skinny, scrawny, little white boy is how I phrase it. And I went to school for electrical engineering. I got my degree, but six months before I graduate.

Was this all Vegas?

No, no. I grew up in Southern California, Inland Empire, Chino area. Went to Cal Poly, Pomona. And so I went to school, got my degree, but six months before I graduated, I discovered network marketing. And this was like entrepreneurship was completely off my radar. Being a small business owner was completely off my radar. No idea about it. My parents weren't at all entrepreneurial. Like, they taught me how to save and kind of some basics of being a good person. And they did an amazing job. And I quickly found out by joining this company how much my self esteem, how fragile it was, how little confidence I had in myself, how. How I wasn't the leader that I had created and constructed in my mind, seeing, seeing myself as macho and Mr. Tough guy and all this stuff, when it came down to it, like, I really had to confront my. My shadow, my. My blocks and the resistance inside of me, Bill. So fast forward about a year of doing that and pretty much falling on my face the whole time, failing forward and figuring out how to. How to take the next steps. Hire a life coach. While I was in Toastmasters, I did that for two years, became the president of the club, and hired a life coach. And his name was Lee Adams. He was going through his final days of battling cancer, and I was working with him for I think, four or six months, something like that. And about a year after I stopped working with him, he passed. And that was a really big, big thing for me. That it touched my heart. And I was like, man, this guy's given his last breaths to contribute to other people and help them realize their dreams and their potential. And I really think that sparked something in. Inside of me. It really reminded me of the teacher that I love to be as well.

Yeah, I don't want you to run on from that because that's such a powerful, heavy thing. Right. I just want to underscore the question for people. What kind of work would you like to be doing with your last breaths? What kind of work do you want to be doing with your last working year? You know, what is it that, like, is really fulfilling and satisfying and joyful and can you get all that in one thing? That's a great question for people to consider.

Yeah, and it's mentorship, too. Having the right coaches, the right mentors, the right leaders who inspire us to be better versions. My parents were great, like I said, but they didn't know how to, how to model a life of legacy. They lived a pretty comfortable life, very well off, you know, middle class, upper middle class, but it wasn't something that. It was like they made a big impact in the world and not everyone's supposed to do that, but I really got that spark lit inside of me with network marketing and working with this coach, Lee Adams. And so I spent the next couple years trying to find out what my path was. The door to door sales for Verizon business, phone lines and Internet, and started on fiverr, did copywriting, communication, editing. Then I took all the information I'd been learning in personal development and started a coaching company about six years ago, started a podcast, started doing live events, in person, workshops, one on one, coaching, all that good stuff, and just been developing myself ever since.

You know, there's a. There's definitely a certain amount of chutzpah and all that. So as a fairly young person early on in your career, you move right into coaching and training and things like that. And, you know, folks like me spent, you know, decades before we moved into that. And I think there's something great like learn it and start to share it then right away that I hear.

Yep, absolutely, absolutely. And I have the philosophy, if something doesn't exist in the world, go create it. Go be the leader that starts something. Like, you started this podcast in the show because you saw something was missing in the marketplace. You saw the business techniques, strategies, inspiring stories, getting connected with leaders who can support people along their journey of scaling up and being the best versions of themselves. You saw that was missing in the way that you knew you could provide and you could deliver. And for me, I've always been the person where it's like, well, I'll go host the first meetup. I'll get 20, 30, 40 people in a room and just start the dang thing. And then we'll go from there. We'll just take one step at a time.

I didn't do that. Maybe I should have done that, but I actually did it. A good friend of mine, one of my forum mates, so I been in various business forums over the year, years, and one of my forumates is A top rated podcaster, a guy by the name of Jordan Harbinger. Shout out.

Oh, yeah. Yep.

And Jordan said to me, he's like, dude, you have a background in radio. You should just go start a podcast. And I was grappling with like different coaches will start blogs and write books and do that. He's like, just do a podcast. It's going to be great for you. And I thought a lot about it. And then I took a while to take his advice because I spent some time thinking about what was a sustainable, consistent format that I could do. How could I make sure that if I launch it, I do it every week and be able to afford it in the beginning that like the time and the money of doing it. So I did it mostly because I could and it was something different. But in reality I didn't look and see what does the marketplace need and what's my unique fresh thing. I'm like, I can get a steady stream of guests. I'm going to be very comfortable interviewing. I understand. Like that kind of thing was more what drove it.

Yeah, yeah.

And then we stuck with it and fiddled over time. Right.

Yeah, it's. It's starting though. I think the concept is, is ready, fire, aim or aim, aim, fire, ready. Whatever the order.

There was a little bit of aiming in the beginning. Yeah. But it wasn't a direct problem solve. It was more like, what do I want to do? What I enjoy doing that. And it turned out a really like, I. It's one of my favorite things to do of all the things I do. Like. Yeah, hosting the podcast is super fun and not hard for me. Right.

Not.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Thanks for calling that out. It's good to reflect on, on these things. So this notion of vision, like what did you do to get clear about your vision? But talk about a little bit about your personal, like how you developed yourself and how you developed your own and like that. Share your own story.

Yeah. So for the vision for me started off at 21 years old. Ish. And my, my greatest vision was houses, cars, women, traveling the world. Right. That's what drove me. It was very ego oriented, self oriented and superficial. And that's what started me off.

I had really common at 21, like, where am I? Like what kind of car am I going to have? Where am I going to live? Who am I going to date? Right. Like, yeah, that's really the.

Yeah. And it's beautiful because I got started and that was enough for me with my work ethic and character. That I continued to persist and persevere. And so I had to have a compelling vision. And that got me started. And then thankfully, I had some pretty good work habits, study habits that my parents had instilled into me from growing up and going to college. And I applied that diligently over and over and over again. So clarity, I believe, clarity of knowing the vision. A lot of people, I think that's simple to do. It's simple to say, well, what do I really want? Maybe people don't ask themselves that question. But if you're willing to ask yourself and you're willing to. To slow down and dig a little deeper and feel into that or think about that picture that what is my best day ever look like? I was asking these questions at 21, 22 years old, saying, what do I want my life to look like? And so that was a big part of it. And I'm sure you have your. Most of your audience has asked that question of themselves, right? They've been in personal development for a bit. They have asked this question. But clarity and execution on that vision, those are two vastly different skill sets, right? Like, I can brainstorm all day a billion ideas, but the ability to go and execute on the one that I think is most important, most valuable, most relevant, that's a different skill set. And so I think that's the bridge that I'm here to bridge. I guess to cross and help people cross is taking their vision and applied consistent, perseverant action to help them be able to get there. So that's a big part. It evolved along the journey, but that's where it started.

So you maybe have a personal or a client story about this, but I'm struck as you're speaking with lots of people have lots of ideas about different things, and I have a ton of ideas. I lead with ideation and I have new ideas all the time. But when you ask me what do I want, like what do I really want in the future? And pick a time horizon, I can think about it for a few minutes, come up with some ideas, and then actually say, that's it. That's what I want. That's what I can see right now. Commit to it, speak it out loud, share it publicly. But I. And then people are like, how do I do that? And I don't know, like, I. For me, that's easy. But I recognize that for a lot of people we work with, that's not easy. They have like, well, it could be like this or it could be like that, or I'M like, it could be lots of ways, but what do you want? And I find people have real trouble saying it. And my suspicion is always that they're afraid to speak what they really want. That they kind of know what they want. They're afraid to speak it because they might not have it. They'll be embarrassed. It'll. It'll sound funny, or they won't ever get it. And I. I usually think that's going on, but I kind of get the feeling some people, they just don't know. They, like, don't have that vision. I. What, what do you find or, you know, what's your experience in this area?

Spot on. Spot on. Bill. For me, one of my clients, Kevin Castillo, love the guy. Brilliant, brilliant dude. He created his first podcast. I helped him create that podcast, get clear on the vision of what his podcast was about, where he wanted it to take him in his future years. And it started out as life supercharged was what it was in the beginning. And then it evolved. It changed. The name changed. That was about a year, A year after launching, he went back and he changed the name, changed the format, and then launched his book about a year or two after that, after that name change and, you know, just that process of him being he was. Before he was a wantrepreneur, he was. He was like posting inspiring things on Facebook and wanting to inspire people, but didn't have a vehicle to grow himself and grow his impact in the world. And so after launching the podcast and the book, now he's getting booked on stages and I would say closer to living his dream life than he has ever been before. And I believe he would agree with that. So for me, it's really getting clarity on what is the vision, the end goal, and how do we want that to impact our life. Kevin probably cared a lot about what people thought about him. He didn't want people to see him fail and go through those struggles when he was first starting out. And what if he messed up? What if he quit the podcast after six months or 12 months or whatever it might be, or what if I change the name, I change it in the future? All these thoughts were going through his head, but it didn't stop him from taking action. Especially when you have an amazing coach like yourself, Bill, or amazing mentor in your corner supporting you, then it's just really about pivoting. How can I pivot and make sure I don't stay stuck? But I 100% agree when people don't have a supportive network. Growing up, I had A very supportive network, very supportive parents who believed in me. Then we can be stopped way more easily by our doubts, by what other people think, by fear of rejection because we have not yet built, built up that, that self esteem and that character. To know that it doesn't really matter what people think about me. What matters is at the end of the day, am I happy with me? Am I, am I grateful to be me? Do I feel like I'm going in the right direction? And like you said earlier with the, the legacy and on our, our deathbed, what are we going to look back and say about our life? Did, did we live a valuable life? Did we contribute? Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter? And I think that's a key.

Yeah, I, it, yeah, there's definitely something. So, you know, in my 50s, with a lot of both successes and failures at a different stage of life, with a different self awareness, the freedom that I have personally to speak my mind, to go for things, is completely different than I did in my 20s. Right. The concern about what people. I mean, I still, you know, worry about embarrassing myself or looking like a fool or whatever. I was just at a meeting recently and somebody called out my name and I was looking at something else alone. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I looked up and I sort of smiled and I didn't want people to see that. Yeah, I was somewhere else. When I reveal that I don't have any idea what you're talking about. So I just sort of look and smile like, okay, whatever, I'm game. And there was no response needed. But I was worried that I was supposed to say something that I hadn't heard.

Yeah, it's, it's, you know, the physiology. I love to study physiology and state. And I don't know about you, but if I'm in that kind of a situation, my whole body's going to like flush with anxiety or potential shame or you know, like that, that energy of, of feeling uncomfortable, whatever that is for people, feeling something in the pit of our stomach, whatever in our gut, whatever that is. And for me, a big part of being able to create that clarity is no matter what happens, no matter what circumstances arise, being so devoted, so committed to that vision, having faith that it is being brought towards us by our devotion, by our persistence and daily action towards it. And so be aware, for all the listeners who are tuning in, be aware of what do you feel in your body when you experience joy, when you experience happiness, when you experience anger, sadness, shame, guilt, regret. What are These emotions, I think a lot of us, me especially, I've been very stuck in my head for years. And one of my greatest practices today, Bill, is reconnecting with my body, really getting back in tune with embodying. What does it mean to be Christopher Burns? What does it mean to live a life of purpose, of service, of gratitude, of kindness? What are these things? What do they mean? How do they feel in my body? So I think that's a big key of, of what I discuss as well. What do you think, Bill?

So you're talking about physical and emotional awareness, becoming aware of and bringing awareness to that. And what do you do if you notice that you're afraid or you're embarrassed or you're confused or distracted? Like how do you, how do you handle that or how do you coach the folks to deal with it?

Yeah. So I'd say a big part in our mastermind, our elite men mastermind that we host is, is breathing, getting grounded through breathing. And so we intentionally have these sections of 60 seconds, 2 minutes, 3 minutes of just slowing down and getting reconnected back in our body. Because it's so easy to just be go, go, go, go, go. In today's world, there's so many opportunities, not enough time, so much information, so many possibilities to take action on. So for me, Bill, and the guys that we work with, it's really focused on breathing and reconnecting with our breath because once we reconnect with the breath then we could start to pay attention to the sensations. And I was just at a ten day silent meditation retreat. Vipassana Meditation Retreat. Highly recommend, super, super powerful. And one of the greatest things that they teach there is to observe the sensations without reaction, without craving something different or something that you desire nirvana or bliss or peace, if you're attached to that, it's going to steal our joy. Know the not to be craving, but also not to be averse to anything. Don't be averting any kind of experience, pain or guilt or sadness. So I think a big part of it for me and my philosophy, Bill, is, is to just observe. How can I not try to push this emotion, this feeling out of my awareness? How can I just be with it, breathe through it and allow it to be. And then it'll probably be gone in about a minute or two. Or if it's something that's a deeper trauma or wound or something like that that comes up in our psyche or in our body, manifests it in our body, then it might take a little bit longer. But ultimately I really believe it's breathing in that centered sourced position so that it doesn't throw us off, off track, off our kilter, off our balance and, and breathing through it, man, I will.

Use a little bit of breathing. I definitely use a lot of self awareness both in the team and the executive coaching, the CEO coaching. I have one other little hack that I found that really works for me and I share it liberally and that's I invite people to go public with things. So when you find yourself like instead of staying in your head, trying to accept it, embrace it or breathe through it, which is all fine, I'll say, okay, once you stop and notice it, then call it out. Oh, I'm sorry, I get distracted. You said a thing and I started thinking about my shopping list or like, oh, I started like, I'm sorry, I totally left. I stopped paying attention to you. Would you like tell me that again or oh my God, I just got embarrassed. I realized something or I'll call out embarrassment, faux pas, things like that as much as possible and just kind of go public with them. And then I noticed that immediately brings me back connected with people and present in the moment. And like it, it changed. Like instead of it being alone in my head somewhere else, now it's out between us and as a result we're connected again.

Yeah. And I think the core essence of that, that I hear is being present and not trying to be anything else or anyone else than the present experience. Because if we think some other experience of, oh, being calm, cool and collected is better, so that's a better safe face, I better have the mask on then that's not going to be as impactful and our presence is going to be diminished. Our connection with, with, with the people that we love and care about and are serving is going to be diminished. And so I love that and I'll give a quick example as well. Petty and I, we just got married about a month and a half ago and it was a beautiful, beautiful wedding. Thank you, man. Thank you. And so, you know, we have pretty conscious communication. What was that? The headband. I wanted to, I wanted to, but I was like, ah, no, I'll leave it off of the way. And, and so what happened was yesterday or two days ago, Petya had some emotions come up due to us moving to Costa or not Costa Rica, Tulum, for about six or seven months. Right. And we live in Vegas and we'll be living there for seven months. So there's some unpredictability environment. But they're both hot, right? Exactly. And. And the. The move came a little earlier than we predicted. We were planning on going in in December or January after the new year. And so it was just. It. It kind of threw us off a little bit. And Petia was experiencing these. These feelings of uncomfortability, of upset. And immediately when she starts kind of venting and sharing with me what's going on in her world, I immediately want to say, okay, what. What can we do to fix this? How can we make this better? How can we get you to a better state? How can we empower you? You know, like. Or even, okay, how do I not own what she's experiencing? This is her experience. I'm gonna. I'm gonna own my experience. These are not my feelings. You know, like, totally being like, coach, mode, fix it mode masculine, try to do something about it. And after breathing through it, I was able to say, no, no, no. What she wants is not necessarily for me to do something, but just to be here with her so that she can express herself, so that she can get these off her chest and be able to move on with her day and get back to whatever is most important to her. And I think as men, particularly in particular, we try to solve things and fix things and go do something about it. And ultimately, I think what a lot of women want, especially my wife, just wants me to be there and listen and hold that space for her. So it was a really good example of breathing and then being able to just be fully present instead of trying to maintain a mask. And so I was able to do that and just listen to her. And I shared this with her, that I kind of wanted to fix it. I wanted to do something about it. And it really brought us back together, created more connection.

That's a really powerful observation that you don't. And it's especially true between men and women, but it's true of people in general. People come in your office, talk about things, they come into your life. You don't necessarily have to fix or work on anything that people share with you. You just have to listen to them at the end of it and get their world, like, to be heard and appreciated, like, fully, richly. The emotional state, the experience, all that. When you really get people like that, when somebody gets you, it's deeply satisfying and empowering. Right. And then sometimes they want something.

Right.

And you could ask that, but I think our natural inclination often is to just go in and work on things. Okay, well, here's what you should do.

Yep.

Are you talking about. I just want you to Listen.

Well, that's why it also helps as people who might get frustrated ourselves, how do we communicate what we desire from the people around us, from our team, from our boss, from our. With our employees, whatever it might be. Spouse, friends, family. And if we're able to communicate, hey, I just need you to listen right now. I don't need any solutions. I don't need any problem solving. I don't need any advice. I just. I want to get this off my chest. Can you do that for me? You know, check in and see. Is that something that they're willing to do? Of course. Like, can't just assume someone's willing to hold that space. Or if you want solutions and say, you know, I really have been banging my head against the wall. I'd love some input from you to be able to move through this. And that's another way to create clarity, is not to try to do it on your own. Because it's. It's one thing to journal. And I'm a. I'm a full believer in journaling and allowing whatever comes to our. Our conscious mind, whatever we're inspired by, to just land on the page and free writing, scripting, our best day ever or dream life or whatever it might be. And to be able to have someone who we're able to bounce ideas off of and validate that and help guide us, keep us on kind of a productive track of conversation and thought, I think is really important as well.

You know, here's what I think is kind of cool about that, that we don't often notice is the idea of telling people what you want before, or checking with people what they want before you start a conversation. So you start a conversation and you say, hey, can I share something with you? Right, that's clear. I just want you to listen. Hey, can I get your ideas and input on this? Can I tell you about a problem I'm dealing with? I'd love some fresh perspective. That's a very clear invitation to a particular kind of conversation, which is different than just starting to talk about something. And you set up the partner, whoever it is, business partner, co worker, peer, spouse, et cetera, to not know what you need or want to in that moment, but to really be clear. I just.

I want.

I want to just talk for a minute, listen, get me, you know. Yeah, that's a useful, powerful thing to notice. And I would say I don't. I don't think about that very often, but that I. That's what I got from what you.

Said, you know, another. Another way that I've. I've heard that phrase by Oprah. She. She goes into every meeting she goes into, and she starts off with, what's our intention here? Right. What are. What are we here to accomplish?

Yeah, that's.

That's key, too.

So I start off special team sessions, special coaching sessions. Those kinds of things are all very clearly set up with the intention of the outcome frame ending, that we accomplish this and we walk out of here in two days with that like. Or I want to, like, do this on this phone call. That's different than the kind of things that just pop up and we don't stop and think, what's my intention? Right. What's. What outcome do I. What do I want to leave with? Right.

And.

And then consequently, we get in things and you'll notice, like your teams at work and they kind of have this where you'll find yourself. And then people just go off in all different random directions, and you're like, is that in the scope or not in the scope of this meeting? Well, if you know what you're intending to finish with, that gets a lot easier.

Yeah, yeah, that's key. And that reminds me of another one of our clients, Elite Men, Mastermind clients, Cameron. And he was running a successful marketing business. He's up in Utah, and he's running a successful marketing business. And he took his foot off the gas of that business and lost that momentum. And he's been like, over the last, I would say, seven months or so, he's really been finding his stride again. But when I was reconnecting with him at the beginning of the year, he didn't have clarity on what's the most important thing to do. The intention, the ability to set. Here's what I'm going to focus on. And even when he did do those things, he felt like something was missing from his approach, from his way of being, from his energy, how he showed up in doing that work, what he's done since being in the Leapman Mastermind is really clarify on what do I desire? What is my want? What do I want my life to look like? And kind of he stopped trying to do what used to work. And I think that's another big thing, Bill, is we keep evolving, right? There's different seasons in our life when something worked maybe five, 10 years ago or even 20 years ago or however much longer, and that's not who we are today. We're different people with different desires, different reality that we want to create. And I think it's important to pay Attention to that as a. As a sense of clarity as well.

Yeah, yeah. Noticing who you are, what you want, where you're going, stopping to reflect on that. And the other thing I think I hear implied in your work is that working with a committed partner coach, a good friend, someone who's listening and providing that, like, feedback and that reception just really can accelerate the work.

It's huge. It's huge. And the mastermind, the mastermind principle. And when we're around a group of other people who are in a spirit of harmony, two people, two or more people. That third mind that gets created from two or more people is so much greater than just one plus one. You might have heard it is. It's not one plus one equals two. It's. Or even one plus one equals three. It's one plus one equals eleven. It's like such a multiplicative effect, an exponential effect that gets created because of that. And that's why I've always loved teams. I grew up on playing baseball and roller hockey in high school and football my senior year. And I love that team approach. It's just for me, it fires me up. So it's another thing that know thyself, know who you are. Cameron was trying to work on this, on this old version of himself, who he was and after really coming home to who am I? What's important to me. He's creating these rocks and created this. He lives in a very rocky area. So he's doing some local marketing on these rocks specially designed to help people with their environment and gardening and things like that. And it's lighting him up. He's super excited about it, able to put his talents and passions to use. And I think that's important to know. Who am I? What lights me up and where am I going in this life? Another thing that I wanted to mention was how do you know who you are and your core values? Because a lot of people say, oh, I have a vision. I know kind of where I want to go in life. But if you don't know how to answer this question of what are your core values? What do you stand for? What do you stand against? If you don't know those things, then life can easily come in and say, oh, there's this new job, this new opportunity, do you want it? And it's like, well, it sounds good, right? Sounds like it'll be a great time.

Talk to us about Gus.

Yeah, yeah. So Gus is another client of mine and he had a successful health practice and body massage, structural re patterning for Bodies. And he had a successful career in data and IT services before that. But he adventured off into this as being direct, right. Completely different. And so he had ventured into this, this. Into this structure, a program, because it had changed his life and his wife's life. And he's like, I want to bring this to Las Vegas. Yeah. And so he did. And ultimately what happened is after three years, the pandemic hit. So he had to close his doors. He was just hitting his stride, his momentum, things were going amazing. And so what happened is he closed down. And he told me, like, I think within a couple months of closing the business, we had a lunch together and he told me about this idea, idea, this health services idea that he was going to bring to Las Vegas. And I was like, awesome, man, let's go. Let me know how I can support you. And about a year ish later, maybe eight months or so, and he was at one of our monthly men's potlucks, and he shared how, man, I'm just not making the progress that I wanted to on this idea. In fact, I haven't done practically anything to validate this idea and bring it to the market. And so he hired me for coaching, for accountability coaching, to just flesh out the idea. And this freaking smart guy, he's like, he knows everything that he needs to do. But sometimes we just got to get out of our own way. Sometimes we get to make it public, we get to put it outside of ourselves and make it real. When we have someone or a group of people, a community holding us accountable to what we said we were going to do, what we said we desire, who we said we would be. And so that's what we did with Gus. And after, I think, like two or three weeks, he's on fire, man. He was like, at the time we were coaching together, he's on fire. And he. He's like validating the idea, getting clear on what's the platform going to be on, talking to different providers here in Las Vegas. And he's just moving and shaking. And he said thank you, thank you to me after working together, he's like, thank you for helping me to get started and get basically off my butt and get into gear so I could bring this to the world. And of course, there's still a long road ahead of him of bringing the idea to the market. But ultimately what he was looking for was that just jumpstart. And I think that's what a lot of people are seeking today, is they're in comfortable, they're in A rut. They're in whatever, some, some kind of flow, some kind of just going through the motions. And what they need is a jump start to get up and out of that into a greater version of themselves in their life. And that's one of the things I love to do, is just remind people what they're capable of and what's possible.

BILL so as we run out of time, let's just recap. There's some great nuggets there. But you talk about on a more personal level level, identifying core values, the things that drive you, the events that are positive or negative, distilling from those, what you care about and creating that. I've done well actually the, the values for my company. And because it's close, it's closer to a practice than a like a large team business. It's so much driven by me, more mirror my own personal values than any other company at any time. And, but you can do that same kind of thing. You can like you know, who should I have on my life team and that I hear that here. And then creating this vision for your life, what do you want to do? You talked about journaling, you talked about visualization and, and you sound flexible with the approach but, but figuring out where you want to go next as far as you can. And I heard you talk about like the next hor but also like your whole life thinking about that and from that discerning the kind of person that you want to be focusing then in on the appropriate growth. And then you mentioned a lot of times having a coach, a mastermind or some other group. I'm reminded I have a mastermind meeting, a peer mastermind this week and then I have a multi day forum retreat that's an entrepreneur forum coming up. And then I've got an advisory board meeting a few weeks after that. So I've got a range of these kinds of things where multiple minds are working on common things and I, I don't think I just have one of them right. Have lots of them and certainly you're advocating that we advocate that too with our, with our clients. If you want to find out more about Chris, go to men mastermind.com read about his programs, check him out. See more with the headband and the groovy background and I love it. You brought color and personality and presence and you can see like your self express. You know, I'm not going to wear the headband, but I can see that your self expression is lit up. You like you've grabbed onto something that like and, and it comes through like, hey, I'm, I'm gonna go with this. I'm gonna do my thing. And I just love that. So be you. So men, mastermind.com is where to find out more about Chris. And if you want to find out more about us, you'll go to scalingcoach.com we can help you find coaches or getting the resources connect to people like Chris. You'll find this show, the show notes, the links, all that kind of thing and more@scalingcoach.com if you want to send us a note info. Scalingcoach.com is a good email for that that Big thanks out to Lucy Summers getting our show produced each week, week in, week out. Go Lucy. And to Vern Harnish, author and creator of the whole Scaling up framework that we use. That's the core of our work. Big thanks to the folks at Podfly Productions, Alby Burge who edits our audio each week and we'll clean up the technical glitch in the middle of this. To Ayn Codina who writes up our show notes and Tim McGowan who proofreads everything. Thanks again everyone for listening. Keep Scaling Up. We'll talk to you again next time.

Bye bye.

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