The WHY Of Trust: The Value Of Trust In Your Career With Michael Chu

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys, and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

And so this week we're going to be talking about the why of trust. So if this is your why, then trust means everything to you. You believe that when relationships are based on trust, the sky is the limit. You will go to great lengths to demonstrate that you are trustworthy and do things such as become an expert in a given field so that you can establish that you can be trusted.

You.

You look to do things correctly because that is what a trusted person would do. People with your why often enjoy numbers because numbers don't lie. If someone breaks your trust, it feels like a knife in the gut and you find it almost impossible to have a relationship with them. After this loss of trust, although you tend to have fewer friends, you build loyal and lasting relationships with those people you can trust. And so today I've got a great guest for you. His name is Michael Chu. He is the creator and founder of Champion Development, Inc. The premier coaching, coaching and support program for executives, fit pros and entrepreneurs. His background started in direct sales leadership and over the last 15 years he has been the CEO of five separate businesses that have generated over seven figures in revenue. Michael is also one of the only coaching mentors who still has an active and thriving health coaching business. In conjunction with his business coaching programs, Mike uses somatic therapy and other mindset techniques to stay in a champion mindset while he runs his companies. He is very passionate about helping other coaches avoid the burnout that often stops them from serving their clients. He is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs scale their business and marketing efforts. Whether you're starting from scratch or going from six figures to seven figures, Michael teaches his clients how to run their passion into profits and generate massive impact and Profit using the maximization model and the LTV method. Michael, welcome to the podcast.

Gary, excited to be here, man. It's been a long time coming.

I know we were talking about that before we started. It's probably about a year that we've been trying to get this to happen.

Yeah.

Now we're here, so. All right, tell us, where are you at right now? What city are you in? And is that where you were born?

I'm in Austin, Texas. I was born in New Jersey, so I'm a tri state, east coast guy, but I've been in Austin now for the last five years or so.

Okay, so let's go back to when you were growing up. What were you like as a kid? What were you like in high school?

Man, it's fun to think back to those days. Sometimes I feel like I was still the identity of my version of me as a high schooler up until just about three to five years ago, as I started doing more of, like, the inner work and stuff like that. But nonetheless, to answer your question, growing up, I was pretty serious even as a kid. My parents even used to joke that I had like worry lines in my forehead as early as 4, 5, 6, 7 years old because I was the oldest son of an Asian family. Always trying to be the good kid, always trying to get good grades and achieve, etc. And so. So I was naturally a worrier, but also a really high achiever. And that caused me to be really shy because I was always scared of messing up, scared of not getting things perfect and things like that. High school, the achiever side played out, ended up doing all the things you would want to do in high school that they say you're supposed to do to get in college grades and academics and athletics and all that type of stuff. But deep down inside, I think I still had tons of insecurities about, you know, really where I was meant for the world and things like that. So that's kind of the one or two minute version, but that was the childhood version of me.

So in high school, were you involved in sports? Were you in. What kinds of things did you like in high school?

Yeah, so I started karate when I was three years old. I ended up competing nationally, internationally. I won over 10 different National Karate Championships through my teens and 20s. I also loved. I love basketball. I played basketball throughout high school. Those are my, like, main activities. I was introduced post high school to entrepreneurship. And that's kind of like where I got exposed to sales and entrepreneurship and things like that, which we can go to, if that's relevant, but specifically what you're asking. High school, it was mainly sports, probably partying. Started getting exposed to partying a little too much. As early as 15, 16 years old. I was like one of the youngest cousins of almost two dozen cousins who are all already 20, 30, et cetera. So probably got introduced to that a little bit too early, but that was me in high school.

So the shyness started to go away and you started to develop into a competitor, obviously.

Yeah, yeah. And then the shyness was still there. I think I just started developing confidence within myself a bit because.

In hindsight, it was a bit of like false confidence because it was all based on external accolades. The more I won, the more confident I was in myself. Better grades I got, the more I achieved, the more I thought I was confident. But, you know, there's a whole story to tell if we get there. But as I got as I close. As I turned close to 30, I realized how fragile that type of confidence really is and was once I hit some low points in my life. So to answer your question, yes, there was some confidence there and the shyness went away. But I don't think it was the most genuine confidence.

Okay, so graduated to high school, off to college.

Where'd you go to College in D.C. george Washington University.

Okay, and what, what did you study there? Why'd you pick George Washington? And what was.

I wanted to go to Georgetown. That was a dream school of mine all through. I loved basketball, so I loved college basketball. The Allen Iverson, Patrick Ewing days. I had a Hoya right above my door in my childhood bedroom. We were at Georgetown touring and I was like, I don't know if I really like it here. It's a little uppity for me. It was a little like, it was a little tight. And so my mom and I, this was pre GPS days and everything like that. We were driving through D.C. to try and get back on the highway to go back to Jersey, and we ended up lost at a gas station. And we stopped and like, where are we? They're like, you're on a college campus. I was like, oh, cool, what college? And like, George Washington gw. I was like, never heard of it before. Right. I'd heard of Georgetown in American and Catholic and stuff, but I never heard of gw and my mom and I were like, we came down here to tour D.C. schools, so might as well check it out. Fell in love with it as I was self touring, decided I was going to apply early and ended up going to GW So that's kind of how I ended up there. What did I major in? Sports, event management and marketing. And probably a little bit of drinking.

Drinking seems to be a common theme here.

Yeah, well, through high school and college. It's funny, I haven't touched alcohol in four years. My dad was an alcoholic. I grew up in a family with alcoholism, but I kind of tie that in. And I'm willing to talk about that openly because it was a part of my identity through high school, college, and most of my 20s. And I got clear on how it was part of my identity and how it was not part of the identity that I wanted to be stepping into moving forward for the rest of my life. And that's why I haven't touched alcohol since. But I think because I haven't touched alcohol since, I jokingly talk about how much I majored in it during those years.

Okay, so you finished college and what was your first job right out of school?

Yeah, so I was waitering at Pizza Hut, eating all the free breadsticks that I could possibly get my hands on while in college. It wasn't really paying the beer and gas money. Here drinking comes up again. It wasn't really paying the beer and gas money. And so in a newspaper, I found an ad for a sales job. And this is when I started to realize my shyness really was a real thing. Still, sales was the first thing that I had found at that point in my life that I admittedly could say I really sucked at school kind of came naturally. I started karate was three and developed that basketball I worked hard at to get good at. Right. But sales was really the first thing that I felt like, wow, I really don't know where to start. I'm not good at this and I really stink at it. But I think the competitor in me was like, this is exactly why I'm going to get good at it. And so I stunk at it, but I stuck with it. And I ended up choosing to stay with that company in that role. When I graduated college, it was direct sales in home sales, kitchen products, if you've ever heard of Cutco knives before. And yeah, so I did that through. Through college, and I chose to manage a sales organization post college. Ended up staying with Cutco for 11 years, where some people, I think, do that job for one summer. But it really forced me to grow. It exposed me to entrepreneurship, personal growth, sales, all those things at a young age. And I paired that with my college degree of sports event marketing and management. Didn't really have Anything to do with it. But I stayed in business and that was the first thing I did post college.

I have a whole set of Cutco knives still.

There you go. There you go. They are incredible.

My sister did Cutco exactly like you said, for a summer, the Cutco. And of course you call every family member.

Your parents, friends, and do the. Do the pitch.

Exactly. You cut the penny and all the things if you've seen it before. And they are incredible knives. But I always share that. I was there for a decade because most people do stay for more like 10 weeks, not 10 years.

Yeah. So what kept you there?

Two things. The competitiveness in wanting to get good at something. Right. I really saw anything.

You could have picked anything. You just why that?

So that's the second piece to it is I saw a vision for a life for myself that I don't think I was exposed to growing up. I grew up with both sides of my. Both grandparents on both sides of my family were farmers from China. So I did grow up seeing hard work instilled within me. But it was very manual labor, hard work. A lot of my family, my mom, my brother, my sister, like half a dozen of my aunts and uncles are teachers. And I love teachers. I think I have a teacher bone within me because of that in my heart. But at the same time, I don't think it really exposed me to the lifestyle that I think I really knew I wanted, especially when I went to College in D.C. at the time, GW is one of the top five most expensive colleges to attend. And so I was surrounded by because of that, by nature, I was surrounded by a lot of kids whose parents were business owners in finance, I bankers, expert CEOs, entrepreneurs. So I was exposed to a level of wealth at GW that I just was not exposed to since then. And then. So as I was doing Cutco while in college, it paired with what I was being exposed to and showed me an opportunity to create a higher level of income and lifestyle that I had not been exposed to at that point. So pair the vision with my competitiveness. And I was like, I'm going to figure this out and I'm going to get good at it. What I ended up falling in love with as I was there is I didn't fall in love with just sales per se. I fell in love with the development of other people because I obviously was developed from, you know, someone who had never sold into somebody who was pretty good. But the ability to do the same for other people, recruit, train and develop them. I really fell in love with that process. And that's I think, really my first exposure to coaching, even though it was a sales role.

So what about that? Did you like what part?

The coaching others. Yeah, well, like I said, I was around, I was around teachers most of my life. So I think, and I mean I started teaching karate classes at karate school. I grew up at as early as like 10 and 11 years old. So I think it tapped into the teacher side that maybe was within me while also pairing to a higher income opportunity than being a traditional school teacher. But really the thing that I loved is I love, I love still to this day, I love building tribes, I love building organizations. And so as you develop people on your team and they stick with you and you start building a team, an army, an organization. I love two things. I love, love a building a tribe teams, but I also love building people right. Where people start to tell stories, man, like Mike, I wouldn't be where I am today without you. You know, I showed up, quote unquote at your doorstep, hopeless, broke, lost. And here I am today, you know, debt free, a millionaire, happy, in a great relationship, whatever it is. So to be even the smallest catalyst to people discovering the best within them. I was, I was working with a Tony Robbins coach at one point, Gary, and he helped me develop in my early 20s that my purpose on earth is to develop champions, to know their greatest glory and abundance. And it doesn't matter if I'm teaching someone how to sell knives or do a karate kick or lose weight or whatever it is, to me it's really all of those things are just a vehicle to help somebody else discover within them like the, the greatest glory and abundance and love that they were put on this earth for. So I think that's where I fell in love with it.

So when we were, when I was talking at the beginning about the why of trust. Right. A big part of that is being the trusted source.

Yeah.

Being the one that others can count on. Right. They believe in you. They know if you tell them something, it's going to be true, it's going to work. Right. They, you grab their hand and lead them along their journey. And that's an amazing quality to have. Okay, so you were with Cutco for 11 years. What happened after that?

Yeah. So. And I love the trust thing. When you were talking about that at the beginning, I smiled as you talked about that because you didn't tell me that was going to be the one of the nine that you're going to pick. But there's so much stuff we could talk about there. And I just, I really aligned with that. So what happened from there is I left Cutco to challenge myself, to kind of apply all the things that I learned in a bigger vehicle. And I ended up going to a smart home company that was owned by Blackstone, billion dollar company. That exposed me. That gave me an opportunity to take a lot of the skills that I had already practiced up until that point on a bigger playing field, so to speak. During that time I was also introduced to the world of online marketing. And so I kind of took all the in person door to door sales worlds and I got really intrigued and interested about what would it look like to be able to generate business without having to go to people's homes, without having to knock doors. And so that's kind of what the next five years of my career became about. I was still doing the direct sales world, but I was starting to become very intrigued by this ability to build a personal brand online and create revenue and tribes through social media and the Internet. But that's kind of what happened post Cutco.

And so then you moved into that direction and you moved into creating businesses in that, in that area, sort of.

Here's what I mean by that. So I had turned 30 years old and I had an early midlife crisis, so to speak. But I made decent money through my 20s. I bought a house. By the time I was 24, 25 years old, I felt like I was one of the youngest promotions to an executive role at the first company I was at and all these things. And I Woke up at 30, kind of having this what the heck's the point of it all type of moments. And I found myself, this is a real story. This isn't like theoretical or metaphorical. I found myself on my bathroom floor, unable to get myself up, out the door into my office. And I'm normally a pretty discipline motivated type of guy from martial arts and all that type of stuff. So even when I don't feel like doing something, I show the F up normally. And it was a weird moment for me to just like feel no drive or purpose and feel a lot of resistance to showing up. And I had a mentor early on when I was still in college who used the phrase, oftentimes he would say, when you lack it, give it. If you lack money, give money. If you feel like you're lacking love, give love. If you're lacking energy, give energy. And that quote kept resonating in my mind during this low point. And I was lacking passion. I was lacking purpose. And so I put a post up on social media that said, in the last 15 years, if I have impacted your world or life in any way, shape or form, the way you think, the way you act financially, whatever, could you share in the comments section how that might have been? And it just reminded me, I got all these comments and all these stories and it reminded me of the impact that I had on people when I was focused on others, not myself. And from that really low place, I decided to launch the Health and Wealth Academy, my first online coaching business which was designed for direct sales leaders and entrepreneurs to stay in the best shape of their lives while working 50, 60, 70 hours a week. Because I had to figure that balance out myself, being a national champion, then becoming an 80 hour a week entrepreneur. I got really out of shape for a while there and I had to learn how to take all the things I knew from being an athlete and pair them together while building seven figure organizations. I built three different seven figure organizations over that span while staying in great shape. 10% body fat, blah blah blah blah, all that type of stuff. And it led to launching the Health and Wealth Academy which has now helped hundreds of of busy executives and entrepreneurs get into great shape physically, mentally and emotionally while leveling up their confidence, income and energy as well. So that was kind of the root of how to build something online.

No, I love it. And so when, how long ago was that that you had the Health and Wealth Academy and do you still have it?

Still do, Yep, I still do today. In my intro you said I'm one of the few people who coaches other online coaches how to build a business, but actually has my own, my own successful coaching business within itself. So that's what that was referring to. Health and Wealth Academy that started in. It was like 2016ish that I was like launching the passion side of that. It was really in 2018 I went all in on the business. So 5ish years ago that I went all in on that business.

Now what do you think was the key to that business becoming so successful?

Great question. I don't know if I've ever been asked it directly that way. The key as to why that business is so successful, I think three things. Number one, I kind of have this. I've been in the coaching world long enough now to see so many people who just want to be a coach because they see the possible lifestyle, but they are missing one thing and that is a track record of actually having created the results that they are coaching other people to Have. So I think the easy one to point to why the Health and Wealth Academy was so successful is what I chose to coach on. I had 10 to 20 years of personal experience myself around, so I wasn't preaching from a soapbox, like, how to. I was sharing how I. How I went through this and the journey and the struggles that I went through. So I think that's the foundational piece to it. Number two, I invested in a ton of mentors. You know, I. Because I. All my businesses up until that point had been in person, and I knew that if I wanted to learn how to grow online, that was a skill that I would have to learn. And I could either take 10 years and try and figure it out on my own, or I could invest dollars to save time and figure that out. So I think that's the second reason. And the third reason is I fortunately had a level of residual income and finances from the other businesses that I had built up until that point. So there truly was, like, I want to serve. I'm doing this from a point in my life where I want to give back. Of course, I was growing a business like, yes, I want to be paid for it, but I didn't need the money. And I think there's something to be said about, like, I don't need you energy, but, like, not faked, not forced, like, true. Like, I truly don't need this energy. And I don't say that arrogantly, Gary. I think just that's kind of the place I was at. And I largely think that's what allowed that business to grow so quickly early on. A combination of those three things.

I love that. And so speak to the power of a mentor, because it's. You are a mentor for a lot of people. And what was it like for you to have those mentors?

Yeah, it's funny, I jokingly say, I think growing up Asian, I can naturally be a little stingy or cheap or frugal. And so I can find myself falling into my more scarcity mindset of, like, why would I spend all that money on something that I can learn myself or something I can figure out? So I guess what I'm speaking to first are a lot of my own natural resistances to investing in mentors and coaches. And I believe we were connected through Mike Koenigs, who, funny enough, I had just invested in a year ago for mentorship and coaching. So I definitely take action to do so. But I have my own resistances almost every time I do. And what I found is that it's less about what you're going to learn from a mentor, particularly. A lot of times for me, it's forced focus. And what I mean by forced focus is like, if someone's trying to lose weight, but they're trying to do it on their own, they're kind of like, well, I could try keto and maybe I should try macros. Maybe I should do 75 hard, maybe I should. They all could work. But the fact that the person's considering so many different things, they don't ever really commit fully with focus to one thing over a long enough period of time. And I find the same thing, whether it's losing weight or whether it's business. There's a dozen different ways you can get an outcome. There's hundreds of different ways you can get a result. But when you invest in a mentor, they say, this is how it worked for me. And I also do think, Gary, that's the difference between mentorship and coaching. There's a lot of times that debate of, do you have to have done the thing that you're coaching other people on. I think mentorship is, watch how I did it. Coaching is. Let me ask you the right questions and support and guide you to figure it out as well. And I think it's just important if people are investing in something that they know which one they're wanting, are they wanting a coach that can guide and direct and kind of help be the bumpers for them and facilitate, or are they actually looking not for a coach? Right. Like Phil Jackson a la Michael Jordan? Right. Or are they looking for a mentor? Right. A la Michael Jordan to Kobe Bryant? Right. Michael Jordan said, this is how I built my career. Kobe Bryant to Michael Jordan is more mentorship. Phil Jackson to Michael Jordan to me is more coaching. And I think it's important to understand the distinction of the two.

Both being valuable.

Both valuable, Yeah. I don't think one's less important. I think it's when people think they're getting a mentor, but they've hired a coach and people think they're getting a coach, but they've hired a mentor, and you might end up with a disconnect of what you were actually looking for.

Okay, so back in 2018, then you started the Health and Wealth Academy, and then since then, you've added some other businesses along the journey and it's heck, that's only been four years ago. So.

What came next?

Yeah, so Health and Wealth Academy with a small social media following. Because, Gary, remember, I did. I had no social media presence or Expertise, everything was in person before that. And so with a small social media following following, I grew Health and wealth Academy from zero to $80,000 a month, the seven figure run rate in nine months and to $200,000 a month in 18 months. A lot of people, and by the way, this is all with organic, not paid ads and stuff like that, with a small following and in the fitness and health space. And so a lot of people kind of say like, you can make that money with business consulting, but not with like fitness, weight loss, et cetera. So I had a lot of people starting to ask me like, Mike, what are you doing? And admittedly I was like, I'm not coaching coaches. That's a BS industry. Right? Like people who do that, they're like, they're just in it for, it's a money grab. They could, they couldn't figure out how to build their own business. So now they're helping other people grow a business. And that's what I told myself. I was in, I was in Beverly Hills, California with two mentors and I was sharing with them how I had built the Health and Wealth Academy. And they said, mike, we've been in this online coaching industry for a decade and the way you're growing your business fast, but also sustainably built to last is different than anything else that's out there. And they said this phrase to me that changed a lot. They said if you were to get into coaching coaches, it wouldn't be about you, it would be about the people you serve and the industry that you can make a difference for. And when they just simply said that one small quote and it took my frame off of me and onto others, or it got me off self and on a purpose, I was like, okay, let me do this. So I beta tested my strategies with 10 people. All 10 had extraordinary success. Whether it was 0 to 10k a month or whether it was 50k to 100k a month or whatever it was. And at that point I decided to launch Passion to Profits, which in the last two and a half years, last year we were ranked Inc5, one of Inc5000's fastest growing companies in America. Yeah, we've grown tremendously fast with, with that business.

And so tell us more about what Passion to Profits does.

Yeah, well, there's really two levels of support that our students get when they come to us. Either, number one, there's the type of person that knows they're an expert at something, they're passionate about something, whether it's sales coaching, whether it's Weight loss, whether it's nutrition or something like that. But they really don't have the system, the blueprint and the tools to turn it into a highly profitable either side income or a full time business. So passion to profit specifically is the launching is like the launching pad to growing their business, taking something they're passionate about and turning it in to a 10 or 30 or 50k a month business online. So we specialize specifically on online marketing and online coaching then for students that are already running a successful or established coaching business, but they're probably stuck around that 20 to 30 to 50k a month mark, maybe they've even broken through seven figures because they have a huge following or they just grind and work their tail off, but they don't really know how to build a business that's built to last. Right. That is sustainable. And so at that level we work with them on the LTV method. And the LTV method is most people in the online coaching industry will keep clients for maybe three to six months. We show them how to keep clients for on average three to six years in a way that it builds a base of monthly recurring revenue in their company. So when they start every month, they already have 30, 50, 100k a month in monthly recurring revenue before they even sell something new. So we teach them how to build the team, the systems, et cetera, the offerings to do that. Because Gary, as Jay Abraham says, there's three ways to grow revenue. Get more front end clients, increase how much those people pay and get them to pay more often. I, I found, at least in my circle of the industry, most people were basically just teaching you how to get more front end clients. Maybe they were telling you to raise your prices. So we at that point really specialize on the third one and that is how to get existing clients to stay and pay more often enthusiastically, in a way that gets them incredible results. So that's kind of what we do with our higher level students that already have an established business.

So what does LTV stand for?

Lifetime value.

Oh, okay, okay.

The lifetime value of a customer, right. If they buy one time for 5k, the lifetime value is 5k. But if they buy again for 15k and again for 75k and that one customer lifetime value, how long they stay and the lifetime value, that's, that's what we're looking to extend. Because if you think about it, most highly valuable companies, they at first have to figure out how to get a lot of clients. But the most success, the most like the highest valuation companies out there they figure out how to minimize CHURN and increase lifetime value. Netflix, right? Amazon, cell phone companies, et cetera, some of the most valuable companies. They find a way to minimize churn turnover of clients and increase the lifetime value of a client. That's why multipliers of subscription companies, that's why multipliers of companies with subscriptions and stuff like that, right? That's why those companies, software companies, etc, that's why the multipliers on the valuation of those companies are so ridiculously high compared to the valuation of other types of businesses.

So how did you learn all this stuff? How did you get Cutco knife salesman? It's a great question to talking about LTV and minimizing Churn and all the things that you're doing now that it's a mind boggling path that you've been on and where you are now is pretty darn impressive.

It's a great question. 39, 39, 39.

And you're already killing it.

So I appreciate that.

What are some of those secrets?

It's a great question because it's interesting. It's like, how did this Pizza Hut breadstick eating knife salesman understand how to do this thing? Well, you asked me earlier what did I fall in love with at that first business? And I said I didn't really fall in love with Sal, per se. Like I got good at it. I have a massive respect for sales. But what I had to figure out at Cutco if I was going to be successful there long term is they have ridiculous turnover of their reps. Turnover in the sense that like we already said, most people do it for a summer, most people do it for a month, most people do it for a week. And I said to myself, if I'm going to stay and do this thing after college, I want to have a consistent income. But if I'm constantly needing to hire and recruit new reps and they're all leaving the next month.

How long could I really do this thing for without burning out, without getting exhausted myself? And so what I had to almost, or what I intentionally chose to get good at in that business is how to develop and retain those sales reps, you know, and that business in particular. This isn't an exactly real stat, but in some regards, the average reps at that company will stay for one to two months.

Maybe three to four months. And I've gotten to the point where reps were staying for one to two years, three to four years. I mean, I haven't been at that company since 2014, so almost 10 years. And there are sales reps that are still the top sales reps in the company there right now. That started with me in 2008, 2009, and again, people oftentimes stay there for one or two months. And here I have some reps there for one to two decades. So that's how I got good at the whole, like, minimizing churn, extending ltv, because I had to figure it out. And I had to figure out what causes people to commit fully and see a vision for themselves and stick with something more long term.

Okay, so let's hear an answer to that question. What is it that causes people to stick with it and stay with it long term?

Well, I wasn't sure if this would actually come full circle during your introduction when you were talking about trust. And because you shared that as part of the introduction, I found my asking, is there a way to tie in whatever questions you wanted to ask today into that theme? And I wasn't sure if it would come up naturally, but the first answer is trust.

People join companies, but they quit relationships. People join Google, people get a job at Amazon, they get a job at Verizon. But then why does someone quit that job in six months? Sometimes they say things like, like they weren't following through with the things they told me. They say things like, I can't trust my direct report. I don't think my leader has my best interest in mind. Right. So people join organizations and join companies, but they quit people. And that's really a byproduct of leadership relationship building, but most importantly, trust. If we were to boil it all down, Gary, I believe that a lot of retention or churn is a byproduct of a gap in expectations. If someone's expectations are blank and you continuously are meeting them or exceeding them, the person kind of not only trusts, but surrenders with, like surrenders in a safe way and goes, I'm in. But if their expectations are here and you're only meeting them or falling short of them, most of the time, they continue to put their guard up. They're always questioning, is this the place for me? They're looking for outs, they're looking for escape routes. And so there's a lot of other things that go into retention. Don't get me wrong, but at the foundational piece, it's trust. Right. And you brought up trust on. I assume you maybe have heard of the book or anyone listening has heard of the book by Stephen Covey, the Speed of trust. Trust is the foundation of, of so much of what happens when it comes to client or employee retention or turnover? Retention or churn is a foundation of trust and expectations.

So when you work with new sales reps back in the day, did you sit down and set out the expectations, very clearly, simplified them so that they knew exactly where you guys were at and then kept revisiting that or how did you go about doing it? What's the process that you used?

A couple mechanisms that I think help people understand this concept better, but it kind of breaks down like this. Most people, when you're first starting something at something, you're naturally wanting to tell them how awesome it is. Right. If you're a coach, for example, you're wanting to tell them all of your best client results. Let's just use weight loss as an example. Oh, Gary, I'm so excited you finally joined my program. I mean, we have Johnny, who just started with us a month ago. He's already down 15 pounds. We got Sally's with us six months. She's down 60 pounds. Right. We naturally want to tell people, and we oftentimes don't mean anything malicious by it, but we naturally want to tell people out of enthusiasm and excitement, the great results that we can get people. But I believe creating expectations for people is threefold. Number one, telling people what are the top tier results, what are not typical results, but they're top. So there's nothing wrong with telling somebody. Johnny just started with me 30 days ago. He's already down £16. But do you back that up with now? To be clear, Gary, that's like top 5% results. He has. He had 100 pounds to lose. To give you an idea, you only have £30 to lose. You only have. Right. So he had £100 to lose. He has been the perfect student. He hasn't missed a single workout. We've asked him. He hasn't missed a single meal. We've asked him a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I want to be clear while I'm sharing that with you so you know, it's possible it is a top 1% type of result. Then the other side of that is, are you willing to tell people the bottom 10% of results? If you go on any of my content, one of the things I learned at Cutco was called 10, 80, 10, 10 80, 10 is what's the top 10% results? The bottom 10% results, and 80% results. The bottom 10% is now, Johnny, I want to be clear. One of my students, Michael hairczyk, he lost 0 pounds in his first four months. With me. Me.

You might be like, Mike, I just invested in your program. You're telling me somebody lost no weight with you? He could have easily told me what Mike, your program's a scam. It didn't work, blah, blah, blah. But you know what? Mike recognized he had developed better habits and routines in that last hundred days than he had in the last 10 years since he had left the army. He was really proud of the traction and the ups and downs that he worked through. And he saw the vision of where we were still taking end up losing 30 plus pounds in the next nine months. Right. And has continued working with us from there. So I'm glad he didn't give up. Right. But here's what you can expect as a norm. The 80% average results is that most of our clients, as long as they're following the program, even if they're not perfect, will lose about a pound per week. Maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less, but a pound per week. So if you're in a 24 week program, losing 15 to 25 pounds is not out of question. Yes. Johnny lost 16 in his first 30. Mike lost year. So that's an example of like establishing expectations is not just telling people the top end results, but telling them all the different tiers of what one could expect. Because I think there's a great quote point number two here, Gary. People don't care what could happen to them.

They care more that you told them it could happen to them.

And there's something about trust when you told them, hey, by the way, this is possible. And here's what we'll do if that happens. Right. When that happens, I want you to schedule an extra call with me and say, mike, I thought after 90 days I'd be making $10,000 already.

I'm only making $3,000 a month. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to schedule a call and we'll assess what's going on and we'll tweak the small things. If that's you, you'll be the next Adrian. Right. Adrian was underperforming in his first four months. He went on to make $100,000 in his first US but it just took them a little while to get, get going. Have we had students that made $20,000 in their first month with us? Yes, but imagine if that's all I told people, $20,000 a month. $20,000 a month right out the gate, and then they only do $4,000 for some people, Gary, $4,000 in extra income could be life changing, debt free, paying their mortgage, whatever. But now they're sitting there thinking they're a failure or that I let them down or I lied to them because I only told them about the $20,000 results. So again, proper expectations, people don't care what can happen to them as long as you told them it could happen them. And then lastly, number three is I think expectations on relationships. I love in any new working relationship having the what you can expect from me but what I expect from you conversation, what you can expect from me, but I also want you to know what I expect from you. And as part of that conversation of what you can expect from me, I oftentimes share the good and the bad about my personality. Just so you know, I can be very serious and like all go, go, go business and sometimes forget to slow down and just say, hey, Gary, how are you doing today? And I just want you to know that's kind of my nature. I care immensely about the people around me, but I sometimes forget to show it because I'm so intense about like, let's get people results. So I'll tell people that. So you're more like relationship building type of personality doesn't go, Mike's an asshole. He doesn't ever like, he doesn't care. Right. And so I set up expectations that way, 10, 80, 10, tell people what could happen to them and what to expect and build expectations on relationship.

Man, I love that. And you know, Michael, when you took the yos discovery back almost a year ago, your why was to create relationships based upon trust. Like we talked about, how you do that is by making things clear and understandable, first for yourself and then for others. And then ultimately what you bring are simple solutions. You just simplify it down to a couple of points. And you have done exactly that during our conversation today. You've taught you've created trust by clarifying what's really going on and then simplifying it down to two to three points. Every time I ask you a question, you say I got two things to that. I got three things.

That's the teacher within me.

Yeah, but it's a great example of your yos and how you live it. Because that's very powerful the way that you do that. And if trust is the most important things, being clear and being simple are important for that, right?

Yeah, yeah, that's. I love it. Clear and simple. And you said something during your introduction that I thought was interesting and you said trust is built. Forget exactly how you said It. But he said, trust is built when we are like, like the living example of what we're asking other people to do. And, you know, that's why I said earlier, expectations, relationships, leadership is what I said. I love John Maxwell's concept of the law of picture or the law of mirror. And that's people won't follow what you tell them to do. They'll follow what they see you do.

Yes.

And I think that's part of, like, relationship building and setting proper expectations and trust as well.

And so one of the things that I talked about in the intro to the why of trust, which is your why, was educating yourself to a very high level so that you can be the trusted source. So for those of you that are not watching us but listening to us, Michael, what is in the background behind you?

Well, it's a bookshelf, but it's a color. Okay, the bookshelf, fine. Everybody has a bookshelf. What you're referencing, my fiance gets credit to. It's a color coded, size ordered bookshelf where it's color coded that goes from tallest to smallest book and then back to small. So the way Kayla would say it, my fiance, she said, said it's aesthetically pleasing to the eye as well.

Yeah, but how many books are there?

I mean, I have another couple dozen on the floor over here and hundreds over here. And I, I don't know the number, but it's, it's, it's a good amount.

And how many have you read?

I don't know a real number, but I, I'll answer that question with this, although, because I don't have a real answer. Through my 20s, I was really obsessed with the quantity of books I was reading. And I did. I really studied books a lot. My life really changed more in my 30s, though, and that's when I started studying books for quality instead of quantity. I'll skim books, I'll read. I'll audible the first five chapters and go, eh, this is good. But not for me. But once I find a book, back to the whole, like, become an expert at a subject, and that's how you become trusted. Once I find a subject that I'm like, I want to live this or implement this in my life, I'll listen to that book or read that book a couple dozen times. So last year I Maybe only read 10 books the whole year. But the book scaling up, for example, I read it 16 to 25 times.

Wow.

Right? Over and over and over and over again, thinking, grow rich. I probably listened to Three times every year. Right. Like, so I know that's not what you're asking. How many books? I don't really know the number, but through most of my 20s, it was a bragging game of how many books did I read this year. Now it's much more about what book did I study, implement, and become an expert.

Yeah. And that's another aspect to the why of trust is you're not going to answer because you don't have an actual answer. So I'm just not going to answer. So you're not going to get out of me because I can't tell you the truth. Right. I can't tell you a number, so I'm not going to say it.

Yeah, yeah.

Take us through a day in the life of Michael Chu.

Yeah, I'll tell. I'll answer that question by bringing you back five, six years ago. And we referenced the whole. I haven't drank alcohol in four years. I hit a dark point in my life. I. I had made all this money and I was in my early 30s. I told you I was really questioning what's it all for. I decided I had to really reinvent myself. And it's funny that you're talking about trust. And here it comes back again because the password to my phone for the last six years has been integrity 15. Right. And so how that ties back into the routine is I'm not a big fan of, like, long morning and evening routines, but I do believe that routines or rituals dictate the results we create in our life. And so a lot of the routines I'm talking about, I do day in, day out and really make sure it's grounded in me. So it's pretty simple. I'm a night owl by nature, so I'm not up at 4 or 5am type. I oftentimes get up and like to get to work pretty quickly. I do something either called a power walk or a power shower. I do my morning routine while walking or showering, and I can get it done in 10 or 15 minutes, which is basically three segments. Right. Which is basically gratitude. I'll take two to five minutes and just address some gratitude. I'll then remind myself what my goals are for the year, and then I'll set my intentions on who I'm committed to being for the day. I can do that in five to 15 minutes. Then I dive right into spending a little bit of time with my daughter and my fiance before they head off to school. And then I get into anywhere from two to four hours, maybe five Hours of deep work at least four days a week, maybe three at a minimum, five at a max. I'm starting off my day with no meetings and deep work. A big project that's going to move the needle. Then I oftentimes take a break to reset. I'm a big Brendan Burchard fan. High performance habits talks about the first habit is high performers stop to recreate clarity often. So I'll stop and reset in the middle of the day to set my intention for the second half of the day. What are my biggest priorities and things like that. At that point I normally dive into either leading my team team coaching clients or catching up on any other last projects I try and work out. Either do martial arts or lift weights. During the summer I like to go out and surf. So I like to try and get active most days and then spend time with the family before heading to bed at night. Sometimes I'm a night owl and Kayla will go to bed early and I'll get some projects done. That's actually I think because of karate. When I was like a young age I wasn't the kid in bed at 8:30. I sometimes wasn't out of class at 7 years old until 9 o'. Clock. So sometimes I'm used to like everyone goes to bed and from like 10pm to 1am are sometimes my most productive hours. So I'd say maybe one or two days a week I'll put in a night out like a late night session to finish up some night stuff. And then weekends are chilling with family. Sundays are completely disconnected and off and we got a date night every week and things like that in there. But that's kind of the daily, weekly routines of there.

Man, very impressive. I got, let's see, about five pages of notes now just from our conversation. So that is awesome. So Michael, if there's people listening that want to get a hold of you, want to follow you, want to work with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Yeah, there's kind of, there's a couple different ways. Instagram is the easiest way just to follow me and all the things going on in my world and my handle there is Mike Mike 2 underscores chew. So Mike 2 underscores chew. However, if you are a coach, an expert or a consultant, we have a free resource for people who are in that industry and you could just go to www.champdev.com free and there's a free three part training on how to reduce churn, increase retention and extend client LTV. There's a high value, no fluff three part training that people could get for free there@champdev.com free free. So Instagram is the best way just to follow me and be my world. If you want to get a resource and check out kind of more what we do, you could go to that website and check out the free resource that we have.

Awesome man. Michael, thank you so much for being here. I'm glad we finally got to do this. This was way more than I expected and I don't know why I didn't expect it, but I mean just it was really valuable stuff that you talked about. So thank you so much for sharing.

My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you so much for listening to the beyond you'd why Podcast. If you have not yet discovered your why, you can do so@whyinstitute.com with the code PODCAST50 and take the why discovery at half price. If you love the beyond you'd why Podcast. Please don't forget to subscribe below and leave us a review and rating on whatever platform you are using to listen to the podcast. Thank you so much and I will see you next week.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez and I'll see you on the next episode.