Ultra Coach with Brendon Burchard and Roberto Corona The Smile Collector

Live coaching-style YouTube session between Brendon Burchard and Roberto Corona (a Chilean nonprofit leader known as "the smile collector"). Roberto describes a decade of traveling to promote happiness and emotional education, motivated in part by the suicide of a niece. He shares his practice of giving free talks, hugs, stories and a framework called "GPS of Happiness" (Gratitude, Purpose, Smiles), but struggles with sustainability: he has no paid product or program, relies on past passive income, and fears running out of funds. Brendon coaches him to stop being the sole messenger, build a repeatable program (not just a product), recruit ambassadors/champions, and structure fundable initiatives so the nonprofit can attract donors and scale.
Chapters
Y' all are pretty okay. Yeah. Stand up. Yeah, let's go. What's up, Grant? Good people.
Hi. Hello. I'm Roberto Gorona from Chile.
Everybody goes. Hey, Roberto.
Hey.
Good seeing you.
Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to be here. You know, I'm a little nervous. The truth is, English is not my native language, but I will do my best.
Your energy is fantastic. We all feel it. We all love it already.
Thanks so much. Thanks so much. Okay. You know, people ask me, what do you do for living, Roberto? And I says, I'm the smile collector. I've been collecting smiles. I'm the ambassador of happiness.
Ambassador of happiness, yes. Yeah, that's good.
I started a nonprofit, so I'm promoting well being and happiness through emotional education. And I've been traveling the world this past 10 years. I don't have, like, a real home. I've been like, away from family and I put myself in service. And people ask me, how can I help? I don't know how to answer that because for me, it's like I'm doing this from my heart. So I don't know how to ask for help. And I know that I have a powerful message and I want to make an impact. And I know when you said that you need someone to fight for and I'm using this powerful. The reason I'm doing this, I lost one of my niece to a suicide. She take her life and I want to prevent other kids to take their life, so. But I want to do it from the power of love. I want people to enjoy life and they want to see, I want them to see how powerful is to live your life to the fullest. Like, everything is possible when you believe in the beauty of your dreams. So I want people to know, like, my knees are.
You're doing great. Great. Roberto, we get where you're going.
Yeah.
What's your question? If you had.
How come I can amplify this message? How can I transform the world if I'm doing this on my own? I don't have any type of support. I'm doing this on my own. But at the same time, that gives me the freedom to keep going and to do this. So I have that challenge. I'm making a big effort to come here because I do believe that this is the right community and I can feel supported and love it for all these amazing people. So I'm grateful for that.
You're so awesome. You mentioned earlier when people say, how can you help? You're not sure how to answer that. Why do you Think you haven't found that answer yet. Why is it hard for you to answer how you can help people as you've traveled for 10 years? You're the ambassador of happiness is.
I haven't developed like a, probably a product or anything. So people come to me and ask, so what can I do for you? And I give them a story. I give away a beautiful lesson that I learned and I give away like a smile. I've been collecting smile with people that represent the diversity and cultural richness of this world. And then someone says, oh, are you selling this? I says, no, I don't sell in this. I'm giving this away for free because I'm doing everything for free. It's like I'm doing charity. I'm going to hospital and schools and taking time with kids. I giving them stories, I give them free hugs. But I don't know what to sell. I'm not selling anything. I've been like living my life because of previous success. I used to be an entrepreneur and I build my own business and then because of that I have some passive income and I'm traveling with that, but I'm not earning new money.
Yeah.
So I know that at some point I will be out of like money.
Okay, that's good. You know this. Okay, good.
So I.
Let me ask, let me ask a question to the audience. How many of you have ever found that you were, you were being the messenger, you were being the helper, you were being the giver, you were being the servant, but you weren't building anything along the way? Has it ever happened? Yeah, I'm going to. So this is not rare and I want to make sure that. Would you raise your hand one more time so you, you see this?
Yeah.
And keep your hand raised so everyone else can around. Because sometimes people judge this, especially in the creator or the influencer, the leadership in the non profit world. People judge it. Oh well, they're just doing something. They haven't built a business around it. And I'm like, that's incredibly common. Common, not something to be judged. Very, very common that we're trying to do something. We want to be the messenger and we're being a messenger, we're being the helper, but we're not doing it in a way that's sustainable or scalable. And at some point you kind of go, can I really sustain this? Do you want to sustain it the way it has been? Do you want to keep it doing exactly the way it's been?
No, I want to do a bigger Impact and know it's possible. That's the reason I'm here.
Are you tired of doing it the way that you've been doing it?
Actually, sometimes I get tired traveling, but I enjoy what I do. I really put my heart out there. And I love, you know, I become a keynote speaker, but at the same time, I do so many keynotes for free.
Oh, some people. Y' all done that before? Raise your hand on that one. You ever done that before?
Okay.
Did you ever get lonely serving this mission?
Yeah. Yeah. I think at the beginning, I was running away because I was afraid. I used to be a wedding photographer, and I realized that I was doing weddings because I want to be closer to love, but I wasn't open to love. And I was putting, like, putting myself in a shield. Like, I was ashamed of who I was because I grew up in this, like, really religious family, and I felt like it wasn't allowed to fail, like, the way I was feeling at the moment. So I shut down myself and I put myself to work, and I was, like, working that hard in order to be successful. And then I was successful, but I realized, well, it's like I felt empty. I wasn't like, if this is success, I'm not sure if that something that I really want from my life. And then I lost everything, and there was just one camera left behind. And that reconnect with my passion, photography. So I decided to travel the world and write a book about love. So I want to ask the people, why is love for you? And that's how I start traveling. And because of that, I did not realize in order to love, you had to learn how to love yourself and to be more authentic.
How many people feel like, he has a great message? See, your. Your method, you have a powerful message. You can feel it from the audience. And I know you've gotten this feedback before, too. And the thing that caused that emptiness before, you're at threat of that coming back again. And that is a different kind of emptiness, which is when you are giving so much, you're emptied out. Who's ever been there? Well, you gave so much, you're emptied out. And you made a really bold decision back then. Like, this thing I'm doing, it's empty. It doesn't feel right. And I know that you've been on this journey for a while that there's not been that push to realize, wait, I'll be emptied out. I'll be emptied out financially if I do this the same way. I'll be emptied out from the Sense of connection, because it can be lonely when I'm only the single messenger. It also creates a little divide from people when they want to help you and they can't. One of the reasons you build something, a product or program, is because then people know how to help or to work with you. You remember Evan in our. Evan Carmichael and the YouTube guy spoke in one of our events I think you were at. Yeah, Evan's amazing guy, and he's always given away free YouTube advice for everybody. And I'll come back to your story. I just want this for the audience. Where we were in a group one time, all multimillionaire influencers going around, and he's down. And finally, I think it was Tom Billy. He goes, hey, I don't know what you do. I just want to give you money. But every time I call you and ask you, you just tell me things. I just. Can I just give you $50,000 to do something for us? And it was so frustrated because it's like, we want to help because we believe in you. We want to help because we know you have a message and expertise, but there's nothing to grab hold of. And you've been doing this journey, and I know it causes you a lot of pain to do it alone. When you embody the messenger spirit, it feels so powerful and so important and almost sacrificial, doesn't it? Like, you don't understand. I've been through this pain, so I'm traveling the world to relieve the world of its pain. You mentioned your family's religion. That's the origin religion story, and you're living it, and you're attempting to do it alone.
Yeah.
And you saw religion growing up, and you know it's powerful, but even Jesus asked for some disciples. And if you don't ask for the help or share exactly how you can help. You mentioned having a product or even as you build your nonprofit. We can't help you, and you can't help more people.
Yeah, I know.
And so this lonely journey that you've been on, you have to reconnect to that idea, which you've shared us before, is you actually want to get closer to love.
Yeah.
And the closest way to love sometimes is to know how to help people and let them help you. And when they don't know how we can help them, there's just a divide. You know, even if I like you, even if I trust you, even if I want smiles and happiness, I go, I don't get it. And so people want to support you. You and you've been on this long, circular journey back to love. But it can't be lonely. The next round.
No, no, I'm open. I'm open to that. Yes.
Yeah, that. Yes. You clicked in there.
Yes. Yes. You know, I was so afraid to fall in love. And then I says, I, I will give myself an opportunity, but I fall so deeply in love that I was blind to the point that my heart was broken because I didn't choose the right person. And that unlocked something on me and says, now I'm ready because I learned. I learned from that experience and stand up and I start to work on myself. And now I. I feel like I have so many tools. I have so much more to give. I get inspired to create the GPS of Happiness method. Great.
I love it.
If you feel stuck or lost in your life, use that method. Gratitude, purpose and smiles, and you will find yourself.
All right, so you're ready to build? Yeah. Okay. We like this idea. Roberto. I don't want you to leave here though and create new frameworks and create new ideas and create new books and create all these new things. When you're the steward of a nonprofit and stay the only messenger. So when you're a steward of a nonprofit, you've got to have champions. You've got to have ambassadors. Get somebody to help support you, help you with travel, help them become messengers of what you have. If you have something important, you have to realize. In our modern world, we say, oh, create a product on it. I go, no, no, no. Here's the million dollar distinction, here's the movement distinction, here's the game changing distinction in your life. Don't listen to the influencers that you need to create a product. Listen to people who say, create a program. A product is yours and you sell it. And there's a one to one interaction. A program is something that you build that other people can also roll out, other people can also sell, other people can also champion. That's the difference. That's the ultra difference. So whether you create a new book with this new framework, you create something. A program now allows you to do two things. One, you get some champions, some disciples, some supporters of you.
Light ambassadors.
It's like ambassadors who take light ambassadors. Great. Takes a little weight off the shoulders. That's important, right? You get some team who might support. But here's the other thing about programs. Programs can get funded in the non profit world. Non profits don't get funded. Nonprofit initiatives and programs get funded. So if I go out and I talk about you, Know I was a member of Junior Achievement and Kiwanis and ymca. If I tell you the mission of ymca, it's great. I said, give me some money for ymca. They're like, for what? I go, ymca. They go, yeah, but for what? They, they want to know what are you going to use the money for? They want that campaign, they want that program, they want that initiative. So as a nonprofit leader, you go, what is the initiative? What is the campaign? What's the program? You build it. You build team to help you roll it out and scale it. Then you go, okay, great. I've got this program. I've got three or four believers. Let me go find some funding believers, people who believe in and will fund the program and this. And I'm coming back to this nonprofit thing. I know I can go deep in the psychology and everything else, but he's a steward of a nonprofit. And when you're steward of a nonprofit, this is game time. It's not just being the messenger, right? You're leading something and that's for you. You've done all the personal work. You ran away from the success when you had it. You didn't think you deserved it. You didn't feel like you deserve the success you had.
It's true. Yeah, yeah. It felt like was so easy. I remember I. Even when I was a student, I received this nuclear physics scholarship and I said, no, I don't want to be in that war. And then I studied two different degrees, engineering, and I was in the medical school. But wasn't enough. And then I started my own business. I was successful, but what else? I was feeling that emptiness. And then I put myself in service. And that's how I found my path.
And now when you found your path, you can build your program.
Yeah.
You can't keep running though. No, you can't run away from the success. Can't run away from the family's religion. Can't run away from the person who broke your heart. Can't run away from the obligation of a non profit. Because what you'll do is you'll. You'll find a new journey. Well, so far, this new world I'm living, it's not right. So now let me go in this direction and let me go in that direction and let me go that direction and you'll circle right back to love, which is a good thing. I know that about you. That's the power you have in all these stories. You're circling right back to service. You're circling right back to love. But the Problem is, if you keep circling and not building.
Yeah.
You end up in a place where. Where even all of that doesn't feel right. Because you're doing the work, but there's nothing to show. And I don't mean show like braggadocious status. What I mean is that intelligence you have, that ability to build, your spirit goes, you know, you could have built, but you ran to the next journey to reconnect with love. You ran to the next journey to reconnect with love. But if you could build, then you could spread love. See, some people go on a long walkabout to spread light. And they go to country after country after country, meeting people, and they're spreading light. And then you know what they do? One day they come home, like last month here, and they go, you know, I'm gonna do. I'm gonna build a lighthouse right here. I'm build this lighthouse. And for generations, this light is going to spread, and generations will know this point and this lighthouse, and that will be real. And because the walking will end, your legs will get tired. The journey will one day just become another trip. Who's ever been? It's just another trip. It's another trip. It's another trip. It's another free keynote, Another free keynote. Now it feels good to do a free keynote, but then a couple days later, some weird thing happens. You get a little bitter. Your brain goes, why? Why am I doing all these free keynotes? Even your spouse is like, why are you doing all these free keynotes? Charge some money, babe. Why are you giving all these services away for free? And people go, why are you doing that? You're giving parts of yourself away. And you go, well, that's because that's the sacrificial part. It's service. Which is totally true. But if we don't build something there, our brain starts to rewire a little bit in a negative way. Our brain goes, I am capable, but I'm not doing it, even though we can. Our brain goes, hey, I'm capable of what you know I'm doing. You're returning to the emotion, our returning to the emotion. I'm returning to the emotion. I'm returning to the motion, which is easier than actually building. Yeah. So when we're distracted at home, it's easier to return the emotions that come along with distraction than to build the thing. And I know that you're so capable and you're so articulate in your message that if you keep wandering, even if you wander and serve, Nelson Mandela had to build. Gandhi had to build. Dr. Martin Luther King had to build. Jesus asked to have something built. You have to find these people who will support you and build something that endures. Because your message is articulate, you all feel that. But if the message doesn't carry forth beyond you, at some point it became about you holding it to return to an emotion versus serving the mission. The mission begs for the build. The ego begs for the emotion. If it's real and it's beyond you, it will require you now to build. We know you're capable, and some of you got. How's. Where's he going with. I know a little bit of his story because I've heard it and he's been at Ultra and we shared some things at dinner. And so I want you to visit this conversation and see if any of it resonates with you.
Yeah.
About now. You've done so much. You've served so much. You ran the miles, you developed the articulation. You've healed.
Yeah.
I feel like you've healed.
Yeah.
Do you? Have you healed?
Yes. I feel. I feel like I'm in a different stage in my life. Everything was worth it. All this, all the pain, all the suffering was something that gave me all the tools that I have now to serve in a better position.
Let's go, Roberto. That's beautiful. Beautiful, Roberto.










