How To Find Your PURPOSE In LIFE! | Chris Ullman

You need to do kind of a survey of what's in your heart and what's in your head. Because so much of it comes down to your interests, which is your heart, and your head, which is your ability. Again, we have inclinations, we have gifts, and we have all this potential inside of us. But if people don't explore it, then they're never going to discover it, and then they're never going to put it to use. So if there's someone listening right now who's thinking, I'm not sure what I want to do. What they should do is go through a period of what I call discernment where you are looking at your life up to that point. The jobs you've had, the projects you've been involved with, the people you know. Where did you struggle? Where did you thrive? How did you overcome things? What excited you about life? I think those are some of the initial steps people need to take to find purpose.

Well, I'm actually looking forward to this. It's not many times you. You run across a really good book, you know, where a billionaire meets a parking attendant and kind of all the features and functions and a championship whistler and all the good stuff. So I'm curious to know how. How you went from one extreme to the next. Like what. What made you decide to come out with this. This book at this particular time?

Well, I. I think extremes are really cool.

Yeah.

And because it's really about, like, immersing yourself in life. And your life, to a great extent, is. Is like a pinball machine. Once you hit the ball, you don't know where it's going to go. And, you know, and you have to be kind of on guard, you know, kind of be just ready. Ready for life. So, you know, so you take the whistling. So the whistling is a hobby that I got really good at, but it doesn't pay a lot, so I just do it for fun. And then it kind of resides over, almost like, parallel to my professional life. So I had worked on the White House. I work on Capitol Hill. I work at a big investment firm. But the whole time I'm whistling. So then I accumulate these great stories. So you've got that juxtaposition there, you know, the billionaire and the parking attendant is, you know, when I drive in the garage and the parking attendant is a happy guy and he parks my car and we get to be friends. But, you know, every day I still have to get in the elevator and go up 40ft and then. And then serve the billionaires because they're my, my bosses, my clients, and I'm comfortable living with, with all of that because they're all God's creatures, you know, whether you're. You're a parking attendant or a billionaire. You're. In the end, you can't take it with you. That's for sure.

Absolutely. Well, in the end, I think, I think a few people have tried, but I know that faith is a huge part of both of our lives, which is amazing. You know, as I'm kind of looking at that and thinking, you know, I think we, I think it was. I was trying to remember which, which author it was. I think it was a Hemingway. I can't remember. I'm gonna, I'm gonna jack this up anyway, but I'm. Go ahead and get it out. That you basically can learn from every person that every man is superior to you and you're in. In some way. And obviously men, meaning people in general. And I think it's one of the things that I appreciated most about the new book is, yeah, there's a lot of really creative stories, including getting pulled up via whistling that then opened up some other doors and things of that n. Amazing, you know, but a lot of the, the bullet points, the things that billionaires do differently than the, than a lot of the average everyday humans, but not actually taking into it, not detracting from the everyday, you know, blue collar worker, which is what I grew up in, in a grand scheme of things. But as I'm making my way through the book, I'm like, you know, this strategy is true, this strategy is true, this strategy is true, this strategy is true. And one of the ones that stuck out at me was the, that there's a diligence or a focused intensity, if you will, that high achieving performers do life differently. They're very focused and very, very, very strategic. And that was taught to me through my own, through my own journey. Talk to me about maybe the, the, the inside of being purposeful, because I don't. I feel like a lot of us are operating on autopilot. We're not as purposeful as we probably could be. And kind of maybe, maybe the intensity and things like that, that kind of go into that.

Yeah, I think the word purposeful is super important because, you know, life is short, life is unpredictable. We've been given gifts, we have opportunities. And, you know, are you gonna kind of shrug when someone says, hey, what are your plans? Or are you going to say, I'm excited to learn, I'm excited about life, I have a plan Or I have a plan that's like being created because plans change over time and purpose changes over time. So it's not set in stone. But if you have an appreciation for kind of the tenuousness of life, that this is a gift from God and that it could go away and you better make the most of it while you can.

So I always have something going on because I want to use the gifts that God gave me. I want to meet totally cool people like you, and I'm going to learn from you. And then hopefully your listeners are going to find some things in this conversation that benefit them. So purpose is so, so important. And what I found among the most successful people that I know, and these are these, many of whom are billionaires these days, it's pretty amazing, is that they actually have purpose. Like if you said to them what is going on, they're going to have like, I got these 10 things going on and I'm heading here and I'm investing there and I'm giving this money away and I'm forming this relationship and it's all with this intent of kind of moving the ball down the field. And that's why like football is such a great analogy in that sense is that when they start off at the 20 yard line, you know, they have a purpose. Very specific. Now sometimes life is, isn't always that clear. But so, and we could talk a lot about like how do you find purpose? Which I think is a really important topic.

Yeah, that's actually I was going to head next because I find that most people don't act on purpose or you know, kind of wake up with their feet on the floor ready to attack the day because they're really unclear on what they should be attacking, you know. And I also discovered a long time ago that it seems to me that you have to open your mind with the pursuit of purpose. Like you have to want to pursue it for you to find it kind of scenario. So I'd love to hear your insights on how we would find purpose because there's so many people, again I believe, that are sleepwalking through life. I was very fortunate to have an early stage mentor that helped me shake myself out of that over time. But I'm curious what kind of insights you would have in helping someone find their purpose.

Yeah, so I've done a lot of mentoring with college students and people kind of in the first few years of their career through this intern program that I'm involved with here in Washington D.C. and it's really interesting to meet Young people. So, like, you're a junior or senior in college, they're here in Washington for the summer, and I'll have coffee or lunch with them and I'll say, so what are you excited about? And some people say, oh, my gosh, I have all these plans. I'm going to go do. I'm going to law school, I'm going to get a graduate degree. I have this cool startup I want to do. I'm like, wow, that's really neat. And I get really pumped up by that. And then other people are like, I don't know. And then I say to these people, your life is 25% over already. You better get going. Right? And they're like, ah, I thought about that. I'm like, yeah, you should think about that.

Yeah.

So then for those people especially, I say, you need to do kind of a survey of what's in your heart and what's in your head, because so much of it comes down to your interests, which is your heart and your head, which is your ability. You know, again, we have inclinations, we have gifts, and we have, like, all this potential inside of us, but if people don't explore it, then they're never going to discover it. And then. And then they're never going to put it to use. So if there's someone listening right now who's thinking, you know, I'm not sure what I want to do, what they should do is go through a period of what I call discernment where you are looking at your life up to that point. The jobs you've had, the projects you've been involved with, the people you know, where did you struggle? Where did you thrive? How did you overcome things? What excited you about life? And, and then talk to people who know you and, and give them license to criticize you so that when they say something, hopefully constructively that's somewhat negative, you're not going to get all, you know, mopey and, and then they won't give you honest feedback. And then kind of the more people are thinking about their heart and their head and then engaging with life. What are the people around you? What do they need? What does the community need? And like, so I think those are some of the initial steps people need to take to find purpose.

Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I think it's a. Just to sum it up a little bit, it's a take an inventory, you know, of kind of what those parts and pieces are. I also find that it's. It's wise to do what you've mentioned, which is maybe go to someone that you know like and trust and say, hey, what are some things I'm really stinking good at? You know, because I've discovered that many of the things that I'm good at, I don't know that I'm good at, I just do them well, you know, so you're almost too close to your own problem, if you will. Now, there's one other concept in the book as we're kind of like talking, talking through, being purposeful that I really, really liked. And as I was digesting the audiobook and then kind of following along with the book, one of the things that I wanted to. We'll give you license to discuss a little bit is learning to think like your successor. I thought that was brilliant. Oh, so maybe walk me through that.

Oh, my gosh.

I just find that gives me tingles.

Wow. All right, all right. It gives me tingles, too. Totally. So this is just an amazing lesson. So I work for this man. His name is Arthur Levitt. Most people never heard of him, but he's a great public servant. He's 92 years old now, and he ran the securities and Exchange Commission, which is the federal agency here in Washington that oversees the stock markets and protects investors from fraud and the like. So Arthur is a man on a mission still. He had an op ed in the Wall street journal around three weeks ago. The guy's 92 years old.

He's got purpose.

Yeah. And so Arthur, Arthur is all about being open minded and learning from the people around you. But he had this phrase, which was to think like your successor. And you'd say, well, how do you think like your successor if you don't know who your successor is? And he used to say it like this is that you go to work every day and you sit at the same desk, you have the same computer, you have your same routines and all that, and you kind of do your thing. Okay, well, you are either quit, you quit, you're fired, you die. Someone else now sits in your chair with your computer, and they are going to survey everything you've done. And they're going to put it in four categories. It's either going to be brilliant, good, marginal, or crazy. Because they're, they're, they're being objective, coming in there and saying, all right, Allman. So Chris Ullman or Stephen, this is how they did things. And wow, I love this over here. And this stuff, this made sense. This stuff, I'm not sure. And this stuff, what were they thinking?

Yeah.

And those your successor is immediately going to get rid of the crazy, probably get rid of the marginal or try to move it into the good category. So then Arthur's philosophy was why wait for your successor to take that very clear eyed look at what you do? Shouldn't we be doing that every day? So that when I come to work I'm open minded. I'm actively soliciting feedback from my subordinates, from my peers, from my superiors saying what can I do better? What can I do better? I'll give you an example. So the current governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin. So I worked with Glenn for 18 years at the Carlyle Group, an investment firm and when he was the co CEO, as he prepared for a speech or a media interview, he would, we would do a practice session and afterwards he'd say, what can I do better? And then he'd give the speech or the interview and then he'd say afterwards, what can I do better? Like he had this spirit of growth.

Yeah.

So he was trying to get rid of the bad stuff and then just focus on the good stuff. Now it is hard to do this because part of the human condition is about pattern recognition and so that you get good at your job because of muscle memory and.

Yeah.

And but one of the challenges is that today is kind of like yesterday and tomorrow is going to be like today. So you have this constancy and this consistency that emerges and we get comfortable there. So it's really important to push yourself out of the comfort zone by like actively seeking to be better and not getting pouty. I mean, I'm amazed at how many people when you say to them, hey, have you thought about this? Oh, I've always done it that way. I'm not going to change. Like really, really. There's no other better way.

Yeah.

So that lesson has had a gigantic impact on my life. I mean my wife and I, this is crazy. Once a year would say to our children, what can we do better as parents?

I bet you got all kinds of interesting answers. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. They'd say, well you're, you treat so and so better than this person. And you know, you're grumpy in the morning and you'd be like, oh really? I never noticed. I did those things. Yeah. I mean, don't we want to be the best? Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean in theory we do, but are we willing to, to kind of manage our egos so that we're able to be our best?

Yeah. Yeah. Why do you think that question is so scary for people to say, what can I do better? I mean, what do you think is driving that, that subconscious behavior?

Well, in based. I think in theory and in practice, people don't like to be criticized. Is that, you know, part of the human can. I think a big part of the human condition is just insecurity.

Yeah.

You know, and it probably dates back, you know, thousands of years. You were food insecure. You were insecure about the elements and the, the saber toothed tiger that was going to eat you. So you're always kind of like wondering, and then once you think you've kind of figured it out, well, who wants to be told, you know, you're not doing it as well as you could be?

Yeah.

Now, I'm a musician and I have a big concert coming up, so I am performing with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra here in Washington area. And the only way I can get better is by having people critique me and then also trying to be objective with myself. You know, I'll put on. I'm doing a piece that I'm going to perform the trumpet part. So I will listen to Wynton Marsalis perform this piece and who's one of the best trumpeters ever, and then I'll perform it and I'll say, all right, I see what he did there. I'm going to try to do that. Or I'm a little sharp or flat here and he's not. I'm going to try to be like him.

Yeah.

So I try to do it to myself. But then I have my children who are very musically talented. I had them listen to my, my practice session and they said, no, no, you're missing a few notes. So. So I think being. If you're open like that and you can. And what you will find is it's, it's this positive reinforcement. You may be insecure at first, but once you actually get better, you'll say, wow, it wasn't so painful after all and it was worth it.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. In fact, I think that's how you actually shape confidence over time is through the consistency of the, of pursuing better. You know, and it doesn't really matter if it's in business or life or whatever. You know, I know that focus plays a huge role in that, you know, trying to figure out what your priorities are and really kind of digging in and kind of focusing. You know, Another thing that I loved about the book, there's a. There's a lot. Everybody should grab the book, by the way. Four billionaires and a Parking attendant. I'm telling you right now, it's a highlighter book. You're going to love it. There's lots of. Everybody knows I like to talk in fortune cookies. And there's lots and lots of nuggets in this book. And one of those nuggets relates to building bridges. And I believe in today's time, most people are islands. Very few people are building bridges. And when they are building bridges, they're not doing so in a way in which they actually want to listen or they're objectively listening. I know you gave several stories in the book where, you know, active listening played a huge role in actually getting something done, including balancing the budget, if you will, in one time frame. So. But one of the nuggets that you had there is don't let the aisle be a wall. And while I know that's kind of a. More geared towards a political kind of environment.

It holds true no matter what it is, you know, so maybe break down the how. How that specific attribute plays such a pivotal role in high performance.

Yeah. So in a. In a book where I'm telling the lessons learned from, like, billionaires and CEOs and chairman of federal committees and. And the like, you might be. You might think it's all about focus and drive and the like and those. That's important. But there are these other parts of the way these people do business that are just as important. Building bridges, being humble, those are so important. So the building bridges I just so love. They're just a bunch of great examples in here. The, you know, whether it's in the political world or the business world. And one of my, one of my favorites is this is one. This lesson called, you have a dog. I have a dog. Let's be friends. Where that man I mentioned earlier, Arthur Levitt. So he's a Democrat, chairman of the federal agency overseeing the stock market. He has to deal with the Republican chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who controls his budget. And first time he ever meets me, walks in, and his name is Phil Graham from Texas, Walks in Phil's office and sees a picture of a Labrador retriever on Phil's desk. And he said, hey, is that your dog? And Phil says, yeah, that's my dog. And Arthur says, I have Labrador retrievers, too. And they bonded over their dogs. Yeah, they didn't talk about the budget or regulations or the sec, none of that. They talked about their dogs. And that became a kind of an animating, no pun intended, part of their relationship where it humanized them, which is really the key. So whether it's in your personal life or in the political sphere, if you demonize someone, you will never be able to work with them because you've removed the humanity from the equation. But that relationship was strengthened and.

Nurtured by their dogs. So here's an example. So say God gave us two ears, one mouth. So if you're a college student and you're on campus and you're, say, a white guy, and you're walking down and there's a black woman coming towards you with a shirt that says Black lives Matter on it. Now, in today's culture, the guy might walk up to her and say, well, white lives matter and blue lives matter and all lives matter. And, you know, there's a time for that discussion. But why doesn't he say to her, you're right. Tell me your story, and then just listen.

Yeah.

And. And you might learn something. And then maybe she'll ask you some questions. And that is what we need, because you're humanizing. It's not just a T shirt. It's not just a cause that you either like or don't like. You're humanizing the person, the situation. You're listening, you're asking more questions, making fewer statements. And it's amazing what you can get done.

But it requires a change in the way we think about relationships, about winning. Do we always have to win, or isn't 70% of what you want better than 100% of nothing?

Yep, in almost every case.

Like the capital gains. It's like the capital gains tax. I, of course, I would prefer a 0 capital gains tax, but, you know, if I can keep 75% of what I might gain, I'll take it. Yeah, it's better than 100 and nothing, that's for sure.

Yeah, right. Well, you know, and I'm wondering if it's almost that. It's almost in today's world, in order to build a bridge, you almost need the story to even find the commonalities, to find the hidden labradors or to find the hidden relationship or whatever, because I did a talk for a friend of mine. We do a host events from time to time at one of our facilities. And they invited me to speak recently. And one of the things that came up as we're kind of going out there is I had the audience stand up, say, well, how many of you are business owners? How many of you entrepreneurs? How are you? How many of you are married to an entrepreneur? How many of you have been through a tough time? How many of you have dealt with fear, anxiety and depression and, and you know, by the time you have everybody stand up, there's literally nobody not standing up. You know, and one of the things that we, we tried to do during that session was try to help them find that common ground. Because, you know, and I know me, the me too kind of has like a negative connotation in certain circles and positive and other circles. But there is that, that relational piece for building bridges where you can say, well, me too, I have a Labrador, I have a, I have a truck, I build a business, I've been married and divorced. Like, all these different things.

I think are great tools to kind of find those commonalities. Are there specific tools or techniques that you use in your relational capacity that you use to find those commonalities that maybe we could share with the audience?

You know, one of the things I like to do is if I'm at a conference, like a business event, and there's a cocktail party or some, some event where I'm meeting someone, you know, I try to get away from the what and get more into the why.

Uh huh.

And so the what. You know, the typical question in Washington is what do you do? You know, oh, you're a lobbyist or you're a public relations person or you're a lawyer or whatever. You know, I'm not opposed to that because you can find commonality in that as well. Yeah, but I try to go in for the humanity. So I ask questions like, what was your last, what was your favorite vacation recently? And people are like, oh, they don't expect the question. And it's kind of disarming and you learn a little bit about them as a person.

I asked the question, tell me something that's important to you as a person that's not about work. And people are like, oh, so literally trying to find out more about the actual human. And then I had a boss who, from many years ago, and he and I are still friends, where he said he almost never made statements, he only asked questions, especially if he's in a business meeting. Tell me what you mean by that. How does that relate to this or how does it relate to that versus saying statement, statement, statement. And like you can throw people on the back foot pretty readily there.

Yeah.

So trying to humanize, trying. And you're being curious. I think those are a couple of important techniques where you can build bridges with people. Yeah. And, and not, you know, you know, what's really important, Stephen, is, is not being scared. I. So I have a friend A female who's a lesbian. And, you know, I come from more of a, kind of a traditional conservative ideological background.

Sure.

But I've been friends for 20 plus years and we will, I will ask her questions that are a little scary for me to ask. What's it like being a lesbian? How do you feel? Do you feel discriminated against? What's it like when you're out in society with your, your wife and your children? And I've learned an immense amount from that. So I try to be brave, I try to be respectful, but I try to ask questions that will help me understand her and her life, her lifestyle and etc. Yeah.

Well, one of the things I love about your approach, and obviously it's done really well for you, is. And I agree with the, there's, there's. There should be no judgment or condemnation, only discovery kind of discovery and exploration.

Yeah. Oh, I like that, you know, a lot.

I kind of. And that kind of, like, really kind of resonates with me. You know, I, I. On top of that, there's another thing you mentioned in the book, and, and that is the ability to disagree without being disagreeable. That I think is a lost art form. I'd like to break that down a little bit because I find that if we can get a little more, a few more people getting okay with disagreeing without being completely disagreeable and mean to one another, we could probably get a whole lot more done.

Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh, that is such a good point. So well put. Yeah. So that is a great lesson. And it was taught to me by a really wonderful man named Bill Kennard, who's like such a bigwig. I mean, he was the US Ambassador to the European Union. He was the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He's the chairman of AT&T. Like V. A T. Like, this guy is a bigwig. And we've been friends for 22 years or so. And now I'm a white male, he's a black male, a couple years older than me. I'm 60, he's probably 63 or so. And we would talk about, like, sticky stuff.

Yeah.

And we would talk about race issues. We would talk about voting reforms in Georgia, which really disturbed the liberals and it.

And.

But conservatives were happy. And the anecdote I tell in that lesson is where Bill and I are having breakfast, actually, my family was there too. So Bill and I kind of having this intense discussion about these voting reforms. So here's a black man calling these voting reforms Jim Crow 2.0. Which is like red meat for a conservative. And. And he's expressing his views, and I'm just listening. Tell me why you feel that way. Give me an example. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I'd say. Then he'd say, well, how do you feel about it? So we were friends discussing kind of the hot button issue of the day and still being friends.

Yeah.

And. And he. He said something that really. That changed my mind on a key part of it. And. And one of the provisions in this voting reform is that you couldn't vote on Sundays. And then. And he says, well, that is clearly just poking black people in the eye, because the tradition among black churches is that after church service on Sunday, they would go and vote.

Yeah.

And I said, you know what? You are totally right.

When I heard that, when I was listening to the audiobook in preparation and learning more about kind of your background, I actually didn't know that. Like, I had no idea. I kind of. During the. During. Back in the day, I was following the whole Georgia thing and kind of. I didn't know that. Which I. I was like, well, that makes a lot of sense. So I. It changed that one little thing. Also changed my mind. Sorry, I mean, to cut you off.

Yeah. So. No, no, I'm glad you. You brought that up, because I just learned so much from Bill from a factual standpoint, but also a stylistic standpoint. Like, Bill, since he was a senior government official, was used to being attacked. There's always someone who's attacking government officials. And he developed a way of listening and learning and still expressing his strongly held views, but in a really respectful way. And when I first met him, I felt like I had to win the debate. Oh, we're talking about a homeless policy, and I want to win it. And then I learned from him that you don't have to win it. You just learn.

Yeah.

Like, what's so wrong? What's so bad about that? Yeah, it's actually a great thing. And so he. And that's the whole.

Light shining in my face here. Sorry about that. Where, like, we could disagree and learn without being disagreeable with each other and then say, you are this and you are that, and ascribing these motivations to people that you know are probably not true. Yeah. So it's nice that they take a step back and say, you're a black man. What is it like to be a black man in America today? I want to know that.

Yeah. Just.

Just give me the download. I'm going to ask questions. I'm Going to learn a lot. It's amazing what I've learned by asking those kind of questions from people who've had different skin color, sexual orientation, political ideology. It's amazing.

Yeah, no, I, I think that's pivotal. One of our team members, a number of years ago, I had not thought about discrimination. Obviously, I'm a white male. That's just the factual truth. Now. I grew up in a very difficult environment, very, you know, kind of like impoverished kind of scenario with, you know, not having enough. And so I understand kind of some commonalities there. But, um, when I witnessed him one time getting discriminated against, it was the first time that I realized there was actually a problem. And I watched it on his face as he was being actively discriminated against. And it fired me up, like. And so much so that I went and tried to address the situation on his behalf, even though he's like, no, don't worry about it kind of scenario. I was like, no, this is. This is not right. This is. This biblically, this is not right. You were created by the same God I was created by. Right kind of scenario. But at the same time, you know, to pivot off some of the things you mentioned, there's a. There's another concept that you mentioned there in that same category that I think is pretty important because I feel like it's. I feel like we write people off too quickly, and that's enemy today and friend tomorrow. You know, someone might have a disagreeable view from you right now, or you may not see eye to eye on something, and in some roundabout way that maybe you kind of deem them as an enemy, whether extreme or not, not that extreme, but either way, you find yourself not wanting to align with that person. Some of the most important business things that have happened in my career have come on the back end of winning my enemies over. Over time. Wow, that turns into future business, you know, And I've also learned that a lot of times when you're able to work with, quote, unquote, your enemy and become friends over time, so to speak, they end up becoming the larger mouthpieces to the, to the, to everybody. Like, you know, kind of. Kind of like a. Well, if they can, you know, if they can make me happy, then they're doing something, you know, so it's almost like a rite of passage.

So.

And I know that's kind of my, my, my, my reframing that a little bit, but I'm curious to know how. How that concept of enemy today and friend tomorrow, you found so, so powerful and so pivotal. Pitiful. Pivotal in the book.

Pivotal. Yes.

Yeah. So. So here's a real life current example. So the. The CEO of Goldman Sachs, which is this giant Wall street bank. Yep. Supposedly, according to what a reputable writer said, is that if this. If a reporter writes a negative article about this CEO, his name's David Solomon, he won't talk to them anymore. The reporter. Now you might think, well, yeah, yeah, if they're gonna write mean things, you shouldn't talk to them. And I say, no, no, that's not how you. It's just not how you do it. And. Because maybe some of the mean things they wrote were true.

Yeah, it's possible.

So maybe there's likely truth to it.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's got. There's almost always some truth to these types of things. So then I. So you take this current real life example, and then you contrast it with this great anecdote in the book, which is where, again, Arthur Levitt. There's a whole bunch of lessons from Arthur Levitt.

The guy is.

The guy is just a machine, a wisdom machine, where this. This reporter was writing this terrible story about Arthur and accusing him of impropriety, like ethical impropriety, which is a pretty serious allegation.

Yeah.

And we engaged with the reporter and we made the story a little bit better. Meaning it was just. It was a little. It was a little less worse.

And then.

Most people would have been like, David Solomon. They would have said, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. You go to the end of the line, even my PR people aren't going to talk to you anymore. But Arthur did the opposite. Arthur embraced her. Arthur went on a charm offensive. Arthur took her to breakfast, took her to lunch, gave her scoops. And what was the fruit of that? Well, she got to know him and she found out, well, he's actually not unethical. And that never came to pass. Nothing of what she wrote was true. And four years later, when Arthur retired, BusinessWeek magazine did a cover story on him. Very positive. She was one of the authors of that story. Wow. And then two years later, he wrote a memoir, and she was the co writer of the memoir.

Wow.

Think about that.

Yeah.

That's the, like, the ultimate example of turning an enemy into a friend.

Yeah.

And nothing, technically nothing changed. He didn't change as a person, she didn't change as a writer. But she got to know him as a person, he got to know her as a person, and they came to trust each other. That when he Said X. He actually meant it. And you know, I'm not saying every story she ever wrote was, was glowing because, because that's just not life. But they really formed this incredible, incredibly constructive relationship. And if he had done it the normal way where ego controlled it, he never would have happened.

Yeah.

And it would have, you would have burned the bridge. And you know, that's, that's crazy because it's like it's cutting off your nose despite your face. But people do it all the time because they let their ego, they let their egos control how they approach problem solving.

Yeah.

Rather than. And this gets to purpose. If you're here and you want to be here and there's an impediment in the way, do you stamp your feet and just keep banging against the impediment or you figure out a way to go over, under, around. Yeah. And then still and get to your, your, your target? You know, I'm, I'm a, I'm, I'm, I want to get to my target. Yeah, that's for sure.

Well, and I think that's, you know, kind of one of the reasons that I've always referred to the show as unstoppable is because people that end up building an unstoppable life, that's all they do. It's not that they don't have impediments. It's not that they don't have problems. It's not that they don't have relationships that don't, you know, that, that are not working out or, you know, that are dysfunctional in some respects. It's just, they just keep going. You know, they don't act like a three year old and stomp their feet and whine and cry. I didn't get my cookie. It's. No. Okay, well how do I need to get, how do I get the cookie next time? Well, you gotta take out the garbage. Okay, well cool. I can take out the garbage now. Give me my cookie.

Yeah.

You know that, I know that's simplistic, but I just got through dealing with a two year old, a two year old, almost three year old over Thanksgiving holiday. And it was interesting to kind of watch that shift when we went from risk to reward. It's like, okay, well you want this will reward you with that if you'll do this kind of scenario. And I find that building an unstoppable lifestyle is very much that way. It's. What have you learned? You know what if there is a roadblock or mechanism in your way, how can you Go through it, over it, around it, et cetera. So I love that. I love that. One of the other things I want to kind of bring up a little bit is a concept of being authentic. And I was kind of surprised as I was making my way through the book, and I was like, oh, this is awesome. And get my highlighter out and jotting some stuff down and whatnot. I was really curious that there was a whole chapter around kind of being. Being comfortable in your own skin, being authentic with yourself and. And kind of that framework, because normally with a, you know, us high achievers, there's not a lot of talk about being authentic. There's a lot of talk about performance, let's get. Let's get it done kind of thing. So talk to me a little about the importance of that and why you. Why you. Why you felt it was so profound that you had to share it with the world.

Yeah, so I do. You know, my profession is corporate communications. And I think too often communicators try to remove the negative and act like it doesn't exist. And first of all, it's not true. And that doesn't mean you lead with your imperfections. But if people are going to kind of respect you, believe you want to work with, you think if the more honest you can be about who you are, what your intentions are, the more likely you'll be able to form those constructive relationships and hopefully deeper relationships over time. So I spent a lot of time talking with my clients about authenticity. And because this gets back to what I was saying before is people like bad news. They kind of got. They kind of wince and they avoid it. So I've had lots of experiences when clients will try to deny reality and just focus on the happy happy. And I try to bring them back to, we must embrace reality. If the factory literally blew up, which we've had happen, we need to embrace the fact that this happened. We have to understand why it happened. We have to correct it for. And so it doesn't happen again. And, you know, a typical person who's hearing about this is going to say, listen, life is not perfect. You are not perfect. I'm not perfect, but I understand. You get it. Yeah, you made a mistake. You're taking responsibility. You're. And you're going to make it better in the future. And that is what's driving that kind of approach is an authenticity approach.

Rather than this denial approach. And I've worked in the kind of political, like this intersection between politics and Wall street for 30 years now. And, you know, A lot of the knee jerk reactions are for people to deny, deny, deny and put on a happy face and you will ruin your reputation that way. But people, they go for the short term gain and then rather than just dealing with the short term pain and triumphing over it. So it's a, it's a big way of how I advise my clients.

Yeah, no, I love that. In fact, I was going to think before, before we wrap the show up, where can everybody actually go out and get the book? Where's the best place for everyone to go?

So Amazon, Barnes and Noble Books, A million. It's readily available there. And it's, you know, it's the kind of thing where, you know, if someone's saying, can I do I want to be my best? Do I want to be successful? However I define it.

Yeah.

Then this book will literally change your life. Actually met with this 23 year old the other day like a high performer. He works at Goldman Sachs. Today he went to Columbia University, like super smart. And I met him and I said to him, I wrote this book. And he's like, what's the book about? I told him and he said, well, that sounds interesting. Yeah, yeah, whatever. And I said, you need to read this book. This book will change your life. And he said, I don't believe you. And I said, give me your address. I sent him the book, he read it immediately, and then we had lunch last week. And he said, this book has changed my life. And it's not because I'm a rocket scientist. It's because I'm very observant and I've worked with some of these people who are literally the most successful people in the world, including the four billionaires. And I saw what they did right and I saw what they did wrong. And I said, well, I'm going to do the right stuff. I'm going to avoid the wrong stuff.

Yeah.

And I'm going to take this middle class suburban kid and I'm going to supercharge how I think and behave every day so I can be my best. The book is not about how to be a billionaire. It's about how to be your best. You want to be the best communicator and advisor to people. I want to be the best Whistler I can be and the best advisor to my clients. And that is the key. And are we, do we have some drive and purpose? Are we humble? Meaning we're, we're opening the brain to change?

Yeah.

And are we disciplined? Because discipline is about execution. Over and over and over and you mentioned this earlier and if you can, if you have some drive and you have some humility and you have some discipline, you can knock the friggin cover off the ball.

Yeah.

Every time lessons. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And to be your best, it's an evolution. You're going to be, you're going to get to your best now and then you're going to get to your best again. And to me one of the purposes of life is to see, see what you can do with what God has given you.

Yeah.

Like to write, really just become as much as you can become and see kind of what happens and help as many people along the way as possible and that kind of scenario, you know. And you know, I guess one of the things that I like, I would agree that it can change your life because I think it'll shave decades off of your learning curve. Like I've always said that there's two ways to learn. You can either learn by the pain of mistakes of yourself or you can learn by the pain and mistakes of other people and distill the same information and kind of go from there. As we're kind of wrapping up, first of all I want to make sure everybody can find you. So please tell us where you can find you. And guys, if you want even get a birthday whistle so make sure you can go check that out. But if, but find you. But also give us maybe one or two do not do's before we head out.

Ah, so they can find me on my website, which is Chris ullman.com C-H-R I S U L L M A N dot com and I'm on LinkedIn too if anyone wants to, to look me up on LinkedIn. I'm happy to connect there. And yeah, so there is 50 lessons of things you should do and then there are 10 lessons of things you should not do. Some of my favorite in that category are avoid groupthink, which I think is really dangerous.

Don't be a jerk just because you can. Sometimes really powerful wealthy people can be jerks because they can. Yeah, it's sort of like the old experience. That too.

And then also don't confuse movement with progress.

If you walk in a circle, you're moving.

Yeah.

You ain't getting anywhere.

That's right.

And so those things have a big effect on me.

And I could go on and on and on. But those are, those are three right there. Yeah.

I love it, man. Chris, thank you so much for coming on the show man. I really appreciate it. Everybody go, go get your copy of four billionaires and a parking attendant. It will bless you. It will be a highlighter book. There are a lot of nuggets and I actually one of the things I like about the book is there's the nuggets are laid out in such a way that despite where you are in your journey. So if you're already a high performing achiever or if you're just getting started in achieving and kind of accelerating, there are nuggets throughout the book for every, for everyone. And Chris, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to write it and put it out in the world. It is a genius piece of work and I can't wait for everybody to get their hands on it.

Well, what a great pleasure to speak with you. You really know what you're doing. So thank you for bringing all this out and what an honor to be with you and your listeners and I hope you have a blessed day and here's to success.

Let's go.

I hope you liked that video and.

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Anyone can do a TEDx talk if they feel like they really have something to share. And I feel like you kind of know when you have something to say and even if you haven't fully teased it out. It's a democracy of ideas and that's what I love about the TEDx stage.