Mindset May With Entrepreneur Craig Siegel

Welcome to the Mike Hartman show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome to another episode. Today I have a real special guest. When we talk about mindset, this guy's the definition of mindset. I mean, he's showing me stuff. His energy is, is out of control. His name is Craig Siegel. He's a mindset coach, speaker, entrepreneur, entrepreneur, performance coach. I mean, this guy has the energy and I had to get him on my show. And Craig, it's great to have you here today.

What a privilege and an honor. Mike, you know how much of a fan I am of yours. And you have my word for the audience. You and I will absolutely manufacture magic here today.

That is absolutely so true. So I work with a lot of people. I see a lot of people that, well, I can't do it. I don't have the energy. And I've never heard you say a negative thing. Is that brought up in you as a young, young, young kid growing up, I could hear you have that southern accent. I'm kidding. In New York City.

That's great. To be honest with you, it wasn't always embodied in me from a young age. After I graduated college is when I really started working on the inner game. Right. And like, I understood nlp, which is neuro linguistic programming and studying the mindset and all that stuff. And I also would study a little bit of the law of attraction and basically the power of positivity. So to answer your question, in a nutshell, I was always pretty positive guy, but it really took it to a whole nother level after college when I started to become absolutely obsessed with personal development and the mindset.

Wow, that's great. And we learned through adversity. So tell us some of your adversity that you went through.

Yeah, so you're absolutely right. We learn our most from the challenges. Right. Not necessarily the wins. So, you know, a lot of things that I've gone through that didn't work out is where I learned the most. Like, for example, after college, I was on Wall Street. I had a ton of success in business, but ultimately, as you can imagine with Wall street and business like that, it's just super unpredictable. So it started to become very stressful and for lack of better words, I stopped having fun and then I pivoted to that and I was in a different business that I built up to an eight figure business where we supplied working capital to business across the country and although lucrative, just didn't fulfill me. And I found myself unhappy. And so, you know, all these things. And also, let me be very clear, like, I've had a couple setbacks, like, I've made some investments that didn't work out and stuff of that nature. But ultimately everything that I, that I acquired during this journey kind of built the Craig 2.0 Persona that in addition to all the mindset stuff and really just working on myself, like almost like, you know, like an artist working on like a piece of clay, just molding myself, kind of brought me to where we are today. Talking to you.

Isn't that great? We always go back and look at, okay, this is where we've been, this is where we are. I know everybody talks about the why, the how, the what. Does that stand out with you? You talk a little bit about the why.

Absolutely. And because like I just mentioned, like there was a time period, to be honest, you as recent as a year ago when I was going to work every day in New York, you know, to my business. Let me just be clear, like I'm grateful I'm a business owner and all that, but I was unfulfilled and I, a couple things all happened at once. You know, my, my father had got diagnosed with cancer. I also just gotten out of a five year relationship and just basically my rock bottom, I was in a little bit of a dark place. And then when the pandemic came, you know, I made a choice. I decided to put it all together. Not to sound too spiritual, but I heard some whispers and I put all my personal development together that I've been studying and I started the CLS brand, which has really taken off, which I'm super humbled by. But make a long story short, you know, because I was in a place of darkness and unfulfillment few years back, I want to make sure that the rest of the world understands that although you may be there, it doesn't have to stay that way. And by revamping your mindset, you could change your perspective and you could really create a whole new life for yourself. And so that's my why is to just help as many people as we possibly can, as cliche as that might sound.

Yeah, well, first of all, I'm sorry about, about your, your father. I mean, anytime he, you know, we have to go through that, it's you know, we all of us handle that in a different way. And I'm very close with both my parents, and as they get older, you start worrying. So, yeah, I'm very sympathetic towards that.

So.

Well, I. Here's what I respect. I respect you for, you know, coming through, and you beat that. But I don't know. I've been in this business for 17 years. We work. We both know David Meltzner, one of the biggest sports agencies in the world. I love that guy. And he's. He's the most giving guy. And then he connected you and I. He says, you have to talk to this guy. I said, well, tell me about him. Well, Entrepreneur magazine, right? I mean, I don't know how many people get on the COVID of Entrepreneur. Share that with me.

Not too many, but we were able to facilitate that because when I started the CLS brand, you know, like I said earlier, like, it really took off. I think people, the audience was able to realize that I was doing this for the right reasons. And obviously, testimonials would come in, and we started the podcast, which we had you on, which. Which is going to be a great surprise soon, and just so many different avenues with the coaching and. And speaking engagement. So it really took off. And, you know, a lot of people have taken notice, and we had a lot of features and publications, none quite as big as Entrepreneur, but when they reach out, you do not say no. And that's how we got that.

I love that. And I know, like, you stand for, you know, in what you believe in. One of the things that I read is you believe that people are not broken, but their frames are often broken. How do you explain that?

Yeah, it's so important, Mike. So here's the thing. I don't believe that anybody is broken or needs to be fixed. However, a lot of people's perspectives might be warped, may be able to use some modifications. So I believe change doesn't take as long as people think. Listen, inspiration is temporary. We could all watch a Rocky movie or watch replays of you winning the Stanley cup and get excited for a couple of weeks, but for most people, it doesn't last. So I believe revamping your mindset, changing literally how you're wired, so you change what you associate pain and pleasure to. You expand your map of the world. And in other words, where you once saw limitations, now you see opportunities. This is the type of stuff that lasts forever. So I believe that people's frame just needs to be rewired, and then everything changes for them.

Wow. So That's. I love that. And so we have a lot of. A lot of our listeners are athletes at every different level. We have them from youth to the big leagues. And we have a lot of people from the big leagues. A couple ballplayers called me up. I was surprised. Major league ballplayer said, hey, we listen to your show. I said, wow, you know, people I grew up with to many groups, and we have Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 companies. So I read somewhere that you talk about revamping their mindset, and a lot of us, you know, sometimes we have those struggles. How do you revamp your mindset?

Yeah, Great questions, Mike. So a couple tangible tools and techniques that I teach my clients early on is the ability to model and anchor. And what that means is this. When you're utilizing modeling, right, you're finding somebody that you hold in high regard and you're absorbing some of the attributes that they use that make them successful. For example, when I first got to Wall street and I didn't have a ton of confidence, and this is going to sound a little goofy, but it was very effective. I began to model James Bond because that guy exudes confidence. He had a swagger. And let me just be clear for the audience, I'm not taking his identity. I'm still Craig Siegel when I go to bed at night. But he has attributes that I would like to develop. And so I would use some of his confidence. Others, right. Might be a mutual friend of ours. Mark Messier, he's just an unbelievable leader and people look up to him. And he has the ability to make people want to be better and overachieve. So I would model some of those attributes and so forth. And just by using these deep techniques, modeling, it's extremely effective. And another one is anchoring. And what that is is a lot of people wake up and they have trouble staying motivated because they're not on fire, as I like to say, every single day. By utilizing the technique of anchoring, you're able to go into a past experience, one that was very exhilarating. I don't know, maybe it was the day you got married, maybe the day you started a business, maybe the day you hoisted the Stanley Cup. You put yourself in that moment, how it felt, how it smelled, who you saw, on a very deep level. Just a 30 second exercise and then you bring yourself back and immediately your state is elevated. And Mike, no one knows better than you. From an elevated state, you can do just about anything.

That's true. Isn't it crazy that your energy is Everything I'm going to share, like this is all about you. I always. We talk about stories, mindsets and champions, right? So I work in a. In a beautiful office here now in Charlotte, North Carolina. I'm looking out the window. I'm looking at all of. It's gorgeous out here today. And I'm looking at, you know, the trees and. But there was a gentleman every day he would come in and at first we use the lounge of this. We do it through Regis. You know, Regis is one of those. You could rent office space. So I'm in here and every day this guy is like, I think he's trying to get under my skin in my mind. So anyways, one day in the elevator, I attempted to say, hey, good morning. I changed my mindset. Hey, good morning, how are you? He says, hey, how are you? So you have to make the effort sometimes. Little do we know our kids ended up. His kids are not going to say his name. I don't even know his last name. I see him every day here. But his kids are 6 years old. I mean, my kids are 27 and 23, but they went to the same school here. Then we started talking. He asked me if I follow basketball. And next thing you know, I had to change my mindset. So along the way, someone has to do it and you have to bring that good energy in. You always. You always sound upbeat. You bring the good energy. I've watched and listened to your podcast, which we'll get into a little bit at the end. I want to know how you. How you came up with. With cls and everything. But. But it's. Isn't it all about you controlling and choosing. You said that word earlier. It's all about choosing your mindset.

A hundred percent, Mike. And even just look at the. I'll give you an example. Like the pandemic, right in the beginning, you know, there was basically two types of people, right? One was binge watching Netflix and day drinking. And the other type of person saw an opportunity that they have a little bit excess time to maybe work on something that they didn't typically have the time for. Maybe they wanted to write a book. Maybe they wanted to start a passion project. Look at me, like, I wanted to start cls. So it's always a choice. There's always a move to be made. And when it comes to energy, I couldn't agree more. In my personal opinion, like, confidence and energy is everything. And I make it my personal mission. Every single conversation I have, whether it's with you today, Mike, Whether it's with my doorman downstairs or, you know, the delivery guy, anybody, I always want to leave that person in an elevated state from the encounter. So just like you did with that guy, I make an effort each time I speak to someone to just be a positive force, high energy, and just upbeat. Because the truth matter is, is energy is contagious.

It sure is. It sure is. And you know what's crazy? Like, as soon as I talk to you, you left me a message that to connect and David Meltzner hooked us up and the minute you opened your mouth. And of course, I always do a little research on somebody and you have a, you know, a great accolades, you know, you know, being on Wall street and in building this quick business that you're building about, I want to learn more about. But I mean, I could tell that energy that you brought to the conversation that wanted me to engage more with you, and people have to realize that it's the energy that you bring.

I appreciate that so much, Mike. And Yeah, you're, you're 100% right. People will gravitate towards a positive energy. And on the flip side, something that I've really been working on, and you know, this might sound a little, like, deep, but it's. The truth of the matter is, is I try to separate myself from people who are the opposite, people who are kind of drain your energy. Life is too short for that. So you're 100% right. We can agree the positive energy is contagious, and that's what people gravitate towards.

You know what, you said it. And it's not crazy what you said. It's true. Like, after a while, you have these energy suckers. And I don't know how we fall into that trap of letting these energy suckers into our life. So anybody that's listening, please listen to what Craig said. You can't just, you know, sometimes you might have a family member that's an energy sucker. I'm not saying eliminate the family member, but pick your spots with them. I, I, I do whatever I can to avoid the energy suckers because they're out there 100%.

And one of my buddies calls them energy vampires because they'll suck your energy. But you're 100, right? Even with family. Listen, like, of course, you and I are so big on family, but no matter who it is, like, if someone has an effect on you to be able to, like, you know, lower your state, you want to, like you said, pick your spots and just minimize that as much as you can. And on the flip side, be around people who lift you higher and bring you to a higher level of energy, more optimistic and positive one. And.

Okay, so how did you start with cls? Tell us the. It's an acronym we know, but tell us like what it is and what made you come up with cls?

Great question, Mike. So like I said earlier, I've been obsessed with personal development for 10 years, but I never thought anything of it in terms of like my livelihood. I was just so fascinated by how you could revamp your mindset, change your attitude and essentially change your world. But when that pandemic happened, and listen, at the time, you know, I told my office to just leave. I thought it was going to be two weeks by the time I came back. But I also realized in that moment that I don't even want to go back to work because it doesn't fulfill me. And I just, I didn't love the path that my life was taken down. And so, you know, I had that spiritual moment in the beginning of the pandemic where I said, listen, my passion has always been to help people and to understand how the mindset works, so to speak. And you know, I've always also had a gift to, when I speak to people to make them want to be better and leave that conversation or interaction and want to improve. And so it occurred to me right then and there that not only is personal development my passion, but it's also my purpose. And when I have clarity like that, I'm very decisive. The very next day, on a run, I thought of the name Cultivate lasting Symphony. And what I mean by that is, as opposed to inspiration, like we said earlier, which is temporary lasting symphony, like to cultivate that edge in life that lasts forever. And when I. Why I use the word symphony is because when I think of a symphony, I think of like an orchestra all playing like in tempo together. And it was, to be honest, you. It's also a play on my initials, cls, Craig Landon Siegel. And so that next day, on a run in Central park, literally the idea came to my head. I pulled over, sat on a bench and I bought the domain name from GoDaddy. That gave me accountability. Now I have a website, I have a plan. I started to think of a three year vision, what this might look like. And you know, for the audience listening, I think very big, like almost like weird, like people might think I'm delusional. I don't care. It is what it is. My thought process, if you're going to think you Might as well think big. And so I thought this thing three years out, I wanted it to be bigger than Tony Robbins and just the biggest thing the world's ever seen in terms of a movement on helping people understand that they don't have to be stuck. They can revamp their mindset and change their life. And I want it to be as big as possible, not for me, but just so I could reach as many lives as possible. And then, very simply put, I reverse engineered the whole thing. And it occurred to me that step one to get all the way over there would be to start building a brand, putting out content and start coaching. And so that's what we did. And then obviously led to the podcast and so many other cool things.

Yeah, like that. Tell us a little bit about your podcast, because I love it. You're having all different walks of life on and already I Look, come on, 500 plus reviews or somewhere up there. I mean, that's amazing. I know you have tens of thousands of downloads. It's not fair for me to say what it is, but I know. And that's has to be what you just being yourself, right?

Absolutely. You know, with the whole vision with the podcast was I thought it would be a great platform to reach so many more people than just say, social media, so to speak. And it was always a chess move in the back pocket. And when it came time to really get the podcast going, the objection, or the vision, I should say, was to have big recognizable names on the show, but not just because they're big names, because I want to hear about what was the mindset like when those successful people were actually at their rock bottom, when they were going through all the adversity and the challenges, how did they power through that on their way to achieving massive success? And, you know, the audience will soon find out. Like, Mike, when we had you on the show, like, of course, course we talked about all the wins and stuff, but I was so interested and fascinated with the journey. And how did you get there and how did you push through, you know, a lot of the obstacles that came your way. That's what's so exciting to me. And then also provide tangible techniques that the audience can take from the episode and literally begin to apply immediately. So I took all that. And you know me, of course, I like to add a little flair and make it entertaining. And I'm very humble to say it took off. We have over 55,000 downloads in just two months time, and the best is yet to come. Well, what's the name of the podcast the CLS Experience. You can download it anywhere. You listen to podcast, Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Pandora, you name it.

And tell us, give us some mindset tips that we can take with us. I always like to pick the brains of the professionals that study mindset. Can you give us some tips that we could take along the way with us?

Sure. So the modeling and anchoring that we spoke about earlier will literally change your entire life if you begin to apply it immediately. Some other mindset hacks that I love to use is like sub modality shifts. And what that is, is it gives you the ability to change what you associate pain and pleasure to. So, for example, like, I have a lot of clients who are getting out of a nasty divorce, and they can't let the past go. It just weighs on them. And they're essentially in quicksand and they have shackles on. And I help them understand that the past, the ex spouse, whatever the case may be, they no longer have to have power over you. We're not saying that we have to associate them with pleasure, but they also don't have to be pain. We can make them indifferent. And then removing those shackles and stepping forward and releasing all of that story behind you. Right. And owning it, so to speak, that's actually pleasurable. So even things like if someone's on a fitness journey and they like to snack at night and they know that it's blocking their progress subconsciously, they're probably associating that with pleasure. I urge them to revamp their mindset and associate that with pain. Obviously, you don't want to do things that associate with pain, so you block that out. And then working out, eating healthy, that we're going to start to associate with pleasure. We want to do more things like that. So listen, the audience change doesn't take as long as you think. It's just strategic. You can change what you associate pain and pleasure to. And also the modeling and the anchoring that we spoke about early are game changers.

Wow. Very good stuff. Now, I don't want to sound weird. You mentioned working out. What do you. You're in pretty good shape, man. What do you do for your workouts?

I appreciate that, Mike. Just trying to follow your lead. So a couple years ago, I got into running, which was weird for me because I had always been into just going to the gym and lifting weights. That was my thing. Not like a bodybuilder or anything, but that was my outlet. Two years back, I got into running, and I was so fascinated with how mental Running is. I mean, assuming that someone in the audience has the ability to put one foot in front of the other. I'm sure you'd agree, Mike. Running is very mental. It's almost 95%. So when I went for that first run, you know, I ran a mile, and I found that that was only a mile, like 10. It was very humbling. But then I realized, was I really that tired, or was it that voice in my head that was telling me I was? And so, naturally, I got obsessed with it. I ended up running four marathons that very year, and I topped out with a personal record in Philadelphia last year at 339, which is really cool to me. So I still keep running as part of my routine. Even though a lot of the marathons have been canceled from the pandemic. They'll open up soon. On the four days of the week that I'm not running, I will sprinkle in some weights upstairs at the gym.

Great stuff. That's good. Do you lift weights? Because I don't lift weights at all. But I got to hear, do you lift weights or.

I do, but my mindset's changed. I'm not looking to be extremely muscular and stuff of that nature now. It's more to just, like, maintain and, you know, build up some strength and stuff like that.

Fantastic. Well, tell us about your website. I'm not here so much to promote. We don't promote people on the show. But I really wanted to get you on because, you know, you have so much to offer and the energy in your voice and the energy that you bring and then, you know, the talking to David Meltzner and everything else. Tell us where people can get in touch with you.

Yeah. So my website is cultivatelastingsymphony.com it's also the name of my private Facebook group, which is really fun. A lot of free training and engagement on there. You'll have ways that you can work with me. Usually I do one on one coaching or have a group coaching mastermind program. Next one coming out in April, which is a ton of fun. And obviously the podcast, the CLS Experience, which we spoke about earlier. Also, I hang out a lot on Instagram, which is regsiegelcls and a couple of other big surprises to come. Stay tuned.

Awesome. Craig, thank you for doing this. So great to have you here today.

Mike, the pleasure was all mine. You know how much love and respect I have for you, and you can bet this, this will absolutely not be the last time that you and I create magic together?

Absolutely.

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