296 Chase Chewning: Living Life Ever Forward

I would even dare say I was asleep for the first 29 years of my life. From, like, 27 to 29. That's when all these things that we've been talking about, I began to fully acknowledge and willingly work through. And it's not that I completed that work in two years. It just. It took that amount of time for me to become aware of my own shit, my own ego, my own self, the ego and shit and itself of so many other people. And to go through, like I was saying earlier, the filtration of the community, to understand what it means to be able and to allow myself to love myself. And I couldn't have done that any sooner because I didn't know who I was. And I've said this before, like, how can you fully love someone if you don't know who the hell they are? So I think people listening, like, do you love yourself? And if not, do you know yourself? Start there. And that was the most important work that I needed to do.

That's Chase Tuning, and this is episode 296 of Wellness Force Radio.

Wellness Force Radio, where we discover the.

Physical and emotional intelligence to live life well.

You can have the same brain states.

As someone who's done an hour of meditation every day for 40 years. There's a lot of losses that we go through. So the ability to be able to cope with those losses is very important.

To build skill in it, because loss will happen. You know, you have to have spiritual.

Courage, to really grow spiritually, because if you really want to take guidance from your soul, you have to be ready to realize that many of the things.

That you're asking for guidance on, your.

Ego has some kind of an addiction.

Addiction to or an investment in.

Welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm glad you're here. This is Josh Trent, and you're listening to Wellness Force. Today we're talking with My fellow podcaster, Mr. Chase Tuning, the host of Ever Forward Radio. I've gotten to know Chase over the past couple years. I've seen this guy at conferences online. He is truly the embodiment of the phrase that his family stands for and his brand stands for Ever Forward. Now, beyond the self explanation of living a life with a compass set for true north, all always moving on forward to the next moment. This show is really unique. If you're a person who has connections, maybe you work with or interrelate to Millennials, specifically men and women in their 20s, teens, or early 30s, this show explores a treasure chest of actionable, insightful advice from Chase and myself to interrelate with millennials and understand what type of language and ways of being will really move the needle for millennials. And essentially just all human beings, you know, we're all on this journey together and, and Chase has a powerful story. This guy has been through quite a bit in his life and he's one of the hardest working, most heart centered men in conscious media in the game. Really. It was a true honor to sit with Chase and really understand the deeper aspects of his personality and what drives him. Chase is actually a Virginia native, he's an army veteran, he's got an Ms. In health promotion, he's an ace certified coach, a TRX suspension trainer. But one of the emotional anchors beyond just Chase's academic background that I feel from this man is is that at all times, this family creed he has of Ever forward. It's not only tattooed on his arm, it's what he strives for, it's what kind of emits from his personality at all times. I know you're gonna like Chase. I really enjoyed this conversation with Chase and his wisdom as we explore these shifting roles between masculine and feminine, where conscious media is going, how do we stay true to our North Star and create from a place of really being of service to others without getting caught up in the ego which is so easy to do to Chase has some insight on this. We also explore what it means to be a fully comprehensive and present man now in 2019 and in 2020 we'll talk about Chase's story, what he believes are the core aspects of living a life ever forward, as well as how he became a top health and wellness podcaster following his dream that was partially sparked by Wellness Force, which is a true honor. Deep bow to you, Chase. Also, we have a real dynamic back and forth about our belief systems, how they get imprinted from childhood and really excited to hear Chase's mindset. You know, he's a few younger years than me and just seeing the way that he articulates and holds himself in conversations, he really directs from a place of personal power. It was really inspiring to sit with Chase and I think about if the future of our conscious media is in the hands of men like Chase. We're moving in the right direction. Make sure you listen to his podcast Ever Forward Radio as well as check out the show Notes today to learn more about chase@wellnessforce.com 296 and I know a lot of people are listening to this either during their workout or pre workout or post workout. Maybe you're gonna exercise later on tonight, one of the core aspects of our wellness is how much we move, how much we move intelligently and also how we recover. It's so easy to forget that all the health benefits of our workouts and our exercise, they actually occur when we recover, when we rest and with our demanding schedules, it can be really challenging to get in all the lifestyle factors to get proper rest. This is why in a busy world, supplementing with recovery products from trusted sources is so important. This is why Wellness Force partnered with Life Aid beverage company, creators of the Fit Aid Zero and the Fit Aid rx. These sugar free, GMO free, amazing health beverages are stacked with recovery vitamins and nutrients. Check this out. Each can, super low calorie, refreshing citrus taste really good. It actually tastes like you're drinking an orange, but like better drinking an orange but better. It's got B complex and glutamine and turmeric and Coq 10 and a host of other super healthy recovery nutrients to give you the upper hand when you're done working out. So if you've been feeling like you've been looking for a a better recovery phase of your exercise, go to wellnessforce.com 0 that's Z-E R O. The company has given you $20 off of 48 cans. This is a huge hookup. Just go to wellnessforce.com 0 Z E R O get $20 off of 48 cans. Give this a test drive. You can mix and match the cases. Support Life Aid beverage company. They're doing amazing work in and out of the CrossFit world and the athletic world. I love what they stand for, the values that they have and they stand for us. So go to wellnessforce.com z pick up the 20 bucks off on the 48 cans. Get them right to your door for this test drive. Wellnessforce.com 0 Now let's drop in live and in person in downtown LA with Chase chuning on Wellness Force.

Josh, I gotta tell you, this is the part of the journey where you're just like, how the hell did we get here? At least for me, because the very first time I ever reached out to you, outside of listening to your podcast, which yours and a couple others were the ones that were the biggest catalyst for me in my journey the last couple of years where I am now. And then I found out, I went on your website one time and oh, he does like complimentary calls or like consultation. It was like 15, 20 minutes. I was like, that's really freaking cool. And so I reached out and I was in my Senior year of my grad school program, health promotion back in dc. I'll never forget this. I parked. I got there early because I know we had our call. I was parked on the side street and I'm just like, listening to a podcast. I say, oh, shit, I'm about to talk to Josh Trent, Wellness Force. This would be so cool. And that's when I started getting this idea of maybe doing my own and just figuring out what I wanted to do with this whole wellness thing. And. And then now here we are, three years later, you're sitting in my apartment building in la. We've met multiple times now. It's just amazing to. From where I was to where we are now.

So cool. Thank you, man. Oh, dude, thank. That fills my heart up right now. I mean, it's dope to be here with you because I. I've gotten to know you and now I understand kind of what you're about, who you are and honestly why you do it. And I've felt connected to your mission ever since you interviewed me on your.

Show, by the way. That was. It was the 30s or 40s.

Yeah, it was early in your game.

Like 30s and now we're like in the 200s.

So it's amazing to me to be in any regard somebody that receives inspiration from or motivation from. I always feel from people that share with me, like, hey, I got something from you. I always share with them exactly what I'm about to tell you. And it's like, it's an honor, like, it is an absolute honor to be able to know that a fraction of what I do or who I am in some way supports the growth or the betterment of someone else. So. And you're great at what you do, man. That's why we're here doing a dual episode. Right?

And before I forget, I want to say this. I had this moment earlier. I was like, some things I wanted to bring up and just to make sure I don't forget this, I think this is such an important point to anyone listening right now or watching that is maybe struggling with why do I keep doing this? You know, am I really passionate about this? Is this going to turn into anything? Does it serve me? Will it serve me, serve others? You never know. The work that you're doing, it almost doesn't matter as much, I think, of how it serves you. I think it's important. But if you're going for the longer term goal here, the, the bigger reach, the bigger impact, you have to keep going. Because what if Josh called it Quits. I don't know if I ever would have started my show. What if, you know, in a moment of like, it kind of thing, you know, if you would have just, you know, called a quiz, and who knows if I would be here doing what I'm doing, Like, oh, that's the point. You have to keep going for you and for the people before you.

And I'll say this one thing. There have been many nights in my process that I've wanted to quit. I mean, I think the feeling of quit is universal for all of us. Like, who doesn't have moments where they're like, fuck this, I want to quit. You know, that's to be human.

Just today, right? Yeah. How many times today?

But I will say with. With you and I both, and with people, with our presence or mindset or however you want to define it, there is this unique genesis qua, like a signature spark that I think creators have way deep down in their soul. And I think that's the part of you and me and. And people that choose not to quit. Because it's a choice.

Yep.

And there's consequences on both sides. I think there's a unique divine spark that is in some way connected to higher power. And you could call it God, you can call it Allah, you could call it higher intelligence. I don't care what you call it. But I know that in some way, you and I are a representation of a higher intelligence that is bringing light to the world. And I truly believe that. And I think that's what than the nights where I do want to quit. I tap into that power, you know, And I've. I've had a lot of tools that have expressed for me over the past three years to get me closer to God. And I'm not talking about a bearded man in the sky. Okay. I'm talking about the thing, Santa Claus. Right. I'm talking about the thing that brought us here, the thing that, like, why we do what we do, you know? And I'm. I'm curious about you, man. When you first started, you started with a unique mission. Has that changed? Because for me, when I think about you, I'm like, yeah, this is the man that allows himself and others to move life forward, ever forward. Did that change from the beginning until now?

The mission, the. The I'll say the purpose and the impact has definitely stayed the same. And I would even more so say it has become more solidified and become stronger. But the way in which I go about that is very different. And this could not be More timely. I'm actually tomorrow and Tuesday I have my personal business coach coming into town and after we go through that work and the conversations I've had recently with people in my life that I value. Yeah, we're completely shifting gears on a lot of things on how we provide products and services and how we go about that mission and how we help others live a life ever forward. Because it's just like I'm making fetch happen and it's just, you know, that's so timely because recently I have really had to kind of come back to square one in terms of all right, what am I trying to make happen and what is just naturally happening?

Yeah.

Where am I putting all of my energy and efforts in that it maybe is not being reciprocated in terms of that ROI or like the growth and the impact and where is it just happening? Where am I just showing up and the magic is there, that connection is there and shifting gears and how that really looks in terms of like the business side of things.

So for your peeps, this is cool for Wellness Force right now, this is a combo.

By the way.

Tell us, tell us who you are, man. Who's Chase and what does he do? Why does he do it? Like, what does your heart do to guide you through this ever full forward process?

So on paper, my name is Chase Tuning. I have a bachelor's and let me go through the formal if we got some, you know, corporate world listeners. I went to school, got my bachelor's in exercise science and masters in health promotion. I've done personal training, group exercise training, online coaching. I'm a certified health coach. All things health, wellness, you name the job, name the title, I've pretty much done it. Before that. I was active duty in the army for about six years and before then even I just lived in the most beautiful countryside in southwest Virginia. I had the best childhood eating the food that my grandparents ate in our garden, just running all over the mountain.

Sounds like Norman Rockwell.

Oh, it's like, you know, what's that movie A River Runs through it or like Little House on the Prairie? You know, we didn't have wagon wheels, but you know, we had cars and you know, phones and things like that. We did have a. Well, we drink well water, but great quality of life. And really the catalyst for my change really happened when I was going through, about halfway through four years into my service, became injured my, my service in the army. You were in the Army? Yeah.

Were you, were you a specific type of, of branch within the army of military Intelligence. Military intelligence.

I could tell you more, but I'd.

Have to kill you, Josh. Cool. Okay. I like to tell your security intelligence is my favorite.

Emotional, even and physical. Yeah, yeah. And it's very funny you say those two words. Not to derail my own story, but that emotional and physical and spiritual actually are things. Three words that have been non stop in my life, in my head, the universe just screaming at me in terms of trauma. And I am so excited to dive into this conversation with you because who else better to my opinion, to kind of talk about this emotional intelligence type of thing and traumas in true wellness terms, to understand things and put it into action for true wellness. These things, part of my story. Physical trauma, significantly injured in preparation for deployment. The loss of my father, my best friend, to a horrific terminal illness, als. Emotional and spiritual trauma that really made me question my faith. And just for months and months and months, cry out why. Got me. And then even years after, and then as of late, doing some deep dive work into literally the first formidable memory I have is of emotional trauma. I never really connected the dots up until the last couple weeks. I think back to right when my parents initially split up. I'm 4, maybe 5 years old. And we're at our grandparents in the countryside, and I come down off the hill and we have this car part, carport, like this open air garage thing inside of the house. And my mom, my biological mom is there on the steps, her back to me. She's facing the backyard, crying, like, shaking, she's so upset. And my dad is there trying to just console her. And my very first memories around this emotional trauma, seeing my parents scared, my mom very scared, upset, and just flashes these words like, why are we here? What are we doing? We're broke. And so from a very beginning stage, and I only know this now because of the work I've put myself onto over the years, is that I'm constantly questioning, am I good enough? What am I doing? I have a horrible relationship with money. I'm always like, am I overcharging? Am I undercharging? Is this worth it? You know, what's the right investment kind of thing? And it's just been those things that first memory, my physical trauma, my emotional trauma, and spiritual, like these traumas I'm really looking into to just really clean up my wellness. Man.

Chase, I'm so extremely impressed and just excited because you are much more millennial than I am. I'm 1980, so, like, I got that far off.

I'm 85, right?

But I got. But you got five more years of Millennial in you. I got one foot in Millennial and the other foot in the other generation. And what I sense from you is you're this voice of conscious masculine. Like, I don't know if you realize this or not, but I'll just express this to you right now.

Hit me, man.

Right? I'll just describe this for everyone who's listening. We're sitting on this beautiful deck. There's, like, sunny Los Angeles. We're kind of in a posh neighborhood. And here's Chase talking about emotional intelligence and trauma in an area where I don't know if it's, like, the perfect fit for that. So really what you are, man, my sense on you is that you're this evolved masculine for the millennial generation. And this is why I was stoked to talk to you and do this show, because there is a part of me that feels like I'm really not scared. Scared is the wrong word, but I'm concerned about what's going on with younger men, because I'm 39 years old, and we're not too far apart. But I think a lot of your audience, at least what I see on Instagram, is, like, guys in their mid to late 20s, they're kind of cutting their path. They're finding their way. They want to live their life ever forward. And a lot of them are not aware of the deep wounding and the things inside of them from an emotional vibration perspective that are actually running their lives. And the quote that came up for me when I was hearing you talk, I was like, oh, Chase is going to the subconscious. Chase is actually looking at the subconscious things that rule his life and how he's changing those. And my favorite quote, man, the number one quote about this subconscious is Carl Jung. I don't know if you ever dove into Carl Jung at all.

A little bit. It might sound familiar.

He has the red book. It's like $10,000 or something. Anyways, his quote is, until you make the unconscious conscious, it'll rule your life, but you'll call it fate. And that's really what we're talking about here. It's like you have your journey of the injury to your body and the loss of your father and this trauma. I have my stuff, too. And we're all, in my opinion, we're all adult men and women walking around, especially those in power that are driven by wounded children that haven't healed inside. And a lot of us, when we hear that, I think a part of everyone listening Is probably like, that feels pretty true.

You know, you make me feel uncomfortable on the treadmill, Josh, getting in my feels in the car.

But I can relate to you, man, because there was a part of my childhood where my mom was manic bipolar. My dad left really young. I was born less than five pounds. I was in an incubator for the first two weeks of my life. And so I came into this world with, like, unique challenges. And I think I chose this life so that I could grow from it in a way and go through these thresholds. And I'll never forget there was this moment, and I think we talked about on your show a long time ago, where I was £280 at one point in my life, and I was drinking at a party, and it was like.

The red cup moment.

The red cup moment.

Set it down. I'm out.

Yes. And I ran home drunk, and I typed in how to be healthy. And that led me on this journey of fitness. And I think, honestly, most people start in personal development with fitness.

God, this is so timely, don't you think? I had this conversation yesterday with another. What do you think about that? That is, call it like a societal norm or maybe what has been kind of presented to us. And so that's maybe the only obvious answer. But I had this conversation with a guest yesterday for the show, and that's what we talked about, and very much so. His story and how he works with clients was, we want to feel better. Right. We want our life to be better. We're seeking health and wellness. What do we all start with? All right, gotta lose weight. I'm gonna start running. I'm gonna go to the gym. It all starts with fitness.

Yeah.

Fitness is the gateway drug to wellness. Fitness is the gateway drug to true happiness. Fitness is the gateway drug to everything that we're seeking that we have no idea we're even after. And it is only through those initial steps of, I do A, I get B, I do work, I get good results, I feel good, I look good. What else can I do? Where else can I do this work? And then it's like, okay, well, if I do this with my body, my body looks good. What if I do this with my mind? Would my mind also be good? You know?

Yeah. And this is. This is the conversation about intelligence. And it's. And it's cool that you've already brought it up like the. The word intelligence. I've been getting a brand new download this year specifically about intelligence. You know what, man? I used to think intelligence was how Smart. Somebody was.

Oh, yeah.

And then I realized being smart has almost nothing to do with intelligence. And I just have a really strong feeling about this because I used to be the person that when I was a trainer, I would have like all the certifications and I'd go to the FMS and I'd get the nasm and I.

You have the whole Alphabet after.

Yeah, I'd have like five.

He's an accredited dude, my friend.

Letters.

Right.

And so then I got to this point where I was like, oh, I'm actually doing that because I don't feel like I'm enough. I feel like I have to have all these pieces of paper on the wall when really the solution to everything is Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote, which is like, it hits me in the throat when I say it. Do the thing and you'll have the power. We don't get the power by gathering, you know, because I feel like intelligence, especially in this modern digital world, has three big phases, man. It's people go through the gathering, they gather information, they get the search, they read the books, they listen to podcasts, and like, hell, yeah. You know, we're all here on our mutual shows because we're gathering together. So it's beautiful.

Fellowship. Absolutely.

Fellowship. But people get stuck in the gathering phase for intelligence. And it's easy to gather because when you gather, you don't have to apply.

Well, what's the quote in the beginning of your show, which I use all the time, by the way, from a former guest years. I forget his name. But in the intro to your show, knowing without doing is simply the same.

Thing as not knowing he is the man. And. And I got that from Dan because he lost his father, actually. And when he lost his father, he realized that you can have all the information. You can gather as much information, the first phase of intelligence as possible. But if you don't have the courage to apply and then lastly to embody, nothing's going to change. You can't live your life ever forward if you're stuck in the gathering phase.

And this is what we're doing. We're downloading, seeking, right? Going to fitness, personal development, learning. Like I'm on this path to self improvement or whatever. I think that is, you know, I being the person here. And we're downloading all these files in all of these various formats. I'm trying to make some kind of millennial analogy here, like a digital reference. We're downloading PNGs and JPEGs and AVIs and all of these various Formats. Just assuming, maybe hoping that we have that software, we have that program that's going to be able to open them.

From a millennial perspective. We're already lit, y'. All.

All right, get lit, Stay lit. Right?

Wait, I got that one one foot in 1980.

So.

But I feel you. I understand what you're saying, because there's a huge part of. Of this gathering phase that's so alluring. You know, our whole society is built on, what do you do, what kind of car do you drive, what's your status, what's your title, how much money? That's all gathering shit. Yeah, that's all just like, who am I from? Like a pulling in the chips at Vegas standpoint. But the second phase of intelligence, man, to go back to this, is this is the application phase. So for anybody that feels like they're not getting progress or they're not moving forward, it's most likely because you're stuck in the gathering and you haven't been applying. So applying is when you, like, you try on the sweater, you see if it itches, you go to the new workout, you go to the new coach, you. You invest in yourself, right? Like you have. You have your coaching program with ever forward coach, your coaches, and all the people that work with you. That takes courage. That takes a heart of a warrior to do something new, to get out of the gathering phase and to ask for help and be like, hey, I can't do this on my own. I get to have help right now. And I think what we're all working towards, though, Chase, is that last phase. Everybody I know, you included, is working towards the embodiment phase.

Yeah.

And in the embodiment phase, this is where we take what we've gathered, what we've applied and tested, and it's actually part of our being. We have literally, like, downloaded and crystallized it and embodied it in our nervous system. So that when I meet somebody like a Paul Check or a Ben Pakulski or, you know, a Chase Tuning, I'm like, oh, this person is a walking embodiment. They've embodied what they've gathered, what they've applied, and I think that can't be faked. You know, one of our mutual friends, Jay Tito, who I'm seeing here in la, he says something amazing. He's like, it's not about faking it till you make it. Like, that's actually not true. That's disingenuous. It's about being it until you see it. So if somebody's listening and they're like, I want to start a podcast. I want to start a blog. I want to do it, like, great that that spark is inside of you. So be it. Until you see it. Don't. Don't fake it till you make it. I love that.

What you're talking about, if I'm interpreting correctly, is the necessity of a belief system, because you can't fake it till you make it. You have to believe it, right? You have to, like, really embody. Like Josh is saying, you have to embody this vision. And that takes. It's much easier said than done, but it is 100% possible.

Patience.

Yes, exactly. But in order to embody that, well, I believe what the work that I've gone through and what I try to do with people that work with us is.

It's.

It's. Again, it's not. It's not fitness. It's not the thing you think it is that's going to get you to the end result. But those are necessary steps and in order to accurately and effectively build your belief system. Because odds are the one you have isn't true. It's. It's an assimilation of. Of your upbringing, all these traumas. Like I was saying, it's all of these outside things kind of coming together. And that's what you think is true. And this is where I. I give credit to people like you and JT it and so many other people in this space. And definitely the person who was this catalyst for me when I decided to step out on my own, when I was like, I love what I do, but I want to do it for myself, right? I want to. I want to be the entrepreneur. I just want to do my own thing where I know I will value myself. The mentor and coach that I had in my life for a long time. And I officially hired. I was like, her name's Yeta. She's been on the show before. I was like, yeta, like, I'm ready. Teach me your ways. Because basically, in back home in Richmond, Virginia, at the time, fitness, wellness entrepreneur, she had done everything. I was like, okay, cool, I'll hire her. She'll teach me all the business secrets, right? Like, how to start, how to scale. Josh, the first work we did didn't have anything to do with my business model. It had nothing to do with, like, how to charge. It was our chase. She's like, who the fuck are you? What do you believe? I was like, what? Like, wasn't expecting that, you know, but, you know, that was the necessary work. I had to almost Abandon my belief system or at least just be willing to accept the fact that maybe this isn't 100% true. Maybe it does need work. Maybe I need to add things, maybe I need to remove things. And that was the work necessary to get, you know, backtrack, you know. Hey, Chase, what did you do to get to where you are? Hey, Josh, what did you do to get to where you are? I decided, or I had the people in my life help me decide that my beliefs need to change.

Oh, I just gotta chill because you. You made me by sharing your story. Remember my story that I'll share. And by the way, my story is like a fractal of everyone out there in the world. We all go through the hero's journey.

A lot of Josh's, the backstory. By the way, I'll definitely link your first episode in my show notes here.

Yes.

Go back and check it out.

We did a lot.

Heavy backstory.

Yeah. And that was cool because that was maybe a year and a half, two years ago or something.

Almost two years.

Yeah, two years ago. So there's this part of what I'm going to say which is totally aligned with yours. And I, at the two year mark of podcasting, had a massive just come to Jesus moment with my soul around identity and branding and who the hell I was. And what happened was, is that when I started Wellness Force, Wellness Force came from this fire, from me being in fitness and seeing the power of technology. And I still have a big understanding that technology can help people. Technology is a double edged sword. And I know that you use it with your platform, with Nudge and with your coaching people.

We're using it right now.

So we're using technology right now. But. But I will tell you this. When I did two years of speaking at Consumer electronics and I moderated panels with like a room of a thousand people, and there was like people that were making the leading wearables in the world. When I would have conversations with them backstage, I could tell because I'm intuitive, I could tell that they were doing it kind of because they wanted to help people, but more because they saw the capitalistic wave of IoT and of connected devices scaling massively. I believe it and it made me feel very uncomfortable because I thought the things that I want to do with wellness technology are not aligned with what I see in the industry. And it really bothered me. And so I had to come to Jesus Moment where I'm like, damn, I can't. My old tagline used to be Wellness Force Empowering Wellness through technology.

Yeah. Oh, wow, I forgot about that. Yeah.

This is the old school wellness, which, you know, if you look back and you haven't changed massively in a couple years, you got to change something. That's for all of us.

Shout out. We were just talking about this recently. I was like, who's your first guest? Your first guest? Fabio. Fabio, like the pioneer of wellness technology. I've gone to like two of his seminars.

Episode number one on wellness, dude.

Like, case in point, technology and wellness. There you go.

And you know what? I think the title was something like the new era of wellness or something like that. Which. Which was beautiful.

You're so cool.

So anyways, I go to Vegas, I'm depressed, I'm stressed out, I'm white knuckling. I'm in this kind of second and a half, third year of entrepreneurship where, God, I was just really unhealthy. Like 10 hours a day at the computer, not enough movement breaks. Like, just really stressed out. And I was feeling this change coming. And I know we all can relate to this. Have you ever felt like what you're doing is you love it, but you know, there's something you get to tweak, yet you don't know what it is you're supposed to change? Like, we've. That's universal for all of us, right? So I go to Vegas. It was a guy named, named Rocco, actually. Really like behind the scenes guy, behind the guy. Business coach.

Oh.

And I spend a weekend in Vegas with him. And I'll never forget this. I was eating like eggs at his counter. And he's like, all right, we're gonna do your first exercise. Write down 15 qualities and aspects that you'd want to see in a intimate relationship. And I was like, isn't this a business weekend? Isn't this a business?

Is this gonna make me money? Like, yeah.

And he said, just trust me, just do it. And he's like, be specific. So two hours, I wrote down 15 things I wanted in an intimate partner. And he's like, great. Do those feel true? Went through each one of them and he said, now cross off the ones that deal with intimacy and leave all the rest. And that's exactly what you want for a business and in a business partnership. And I was like, oh, my God, this is so true. Because the same.

I gotta take notes here.

So. So the same way that we run our intimate lives and our relationships, minus the physical and the intimacy, it's the same characteristics and qualities that we desire in business relationships and with our. With our Business in itself. And so I realized I had fallen out of love with wellnessforce. I had fallen out of love with wellness technology. I had fallen out of love with it, and I was. I was feeling a void.

Wow.

And he said, this is. This is the one question that I'll never forget. He said, what are you most afraid of sharing? And I said, I'm most afraid of sharing that I don't have it all figured out, and then I'm just kind of, like, discovering it all. And he's like, great. What are you discovering? And I said, well, how do I live my life? Well, you know, how do I eat and move and sleep, and what are my thoughts, feelings, and actions do for my body and for people around me? And he's like, oh, you're discovering intelligence. He's like, you're discovering physical and emotional intelligence.

There's that I word.

When he said that, I mean, we just had a huge car, like, light us up right now. When he said that, I felt a lightning bolt go through my body. We've all had these moments where someone says something and it is so visceral, and your nervous system lights up like a Christmas tree. And I knew from that moment chase, like, literally, boom in this guy's kitchen that not only was what he just said worth the entire cost of the weekend, but it would be the path that I would follow for the rest of my life without any. Without any doubt. Because I realized that, oh, I had thought I had to be a guru. I thought I had to have it all figured out. I thought I had to be the expert. And really what resonates with people is the truth of where someone actually is. Like, Gary Vaynerchuk talks about it, he just does it in a different way. You know, document instead of create.

Document first, then create, then create.

So what I'm doing with Wellness Force is I'm sharing authentically, even if it's uncomfortable. Sometimes it's uncomfortable as fuck.

Good, Good.

My physical and emotional intelligence, the discovering process of the physical and the emotional intelligence. So to me now, I feel like I'm in integrity. And I think the sickness that so many of us deal with is we have a dream, we have a mission, we have a purpose. Yet the fuel source is not at integrity with our soul, and it takes time for that fuel source to align. It takes time, man. And this is when people quit, right? When they're not aligned. So thank you for allowing me to remember that. This is the beauty of podcasting.

This is one of the things I love doing this now, especially doing pretty much all of these in person interviews is just. Just seeing people light up just exactly like we're talking about, man. Like, when you go back to that moment. I mean, we were talking earlier about, you know, like, remembering these traumas and working through them, like.

Yeah.

How that kind of aligns the. The mind and the body. So does this, but in an electric way is amazing. Just seeing you, like, your body language, your face, like, everything, you didn't stop smiling the whole time. So, like, that is obviously, this is your. This is your path.

Well, and. And. And I feel very strongly your path too. And with respect, I want to ask you. There was a moment that when I first met you, and I think we had a first, second or third conversation actually, you'd brought up the loss of your dad. And, And I think I wanted to ask you right away. I was like, how did you deal with that and what does that mean to you now? Because I don't know. Chase, like many people listening have dealt with the loss of someone. I've never dealt with the loss of a parent. The closest loss I've had is my grandfather, who. Who I'm actually wearing his necklace from work.

And I know you're close, which is amazing.

So that's my only loss. But, you know, for you, for people that don't know how that's shaped you, how has that shaped you? Like, what kind of love do you pull from. From that relationship, that vacuum? And how does that fuel you now?

Yeah, I think we're at Was Expo Food Expo West. You know, we were reconnect, talking about that. Yep. And I'll give a little bit of backstory for you and the person listening. And a lot of people in my audience might know this already, but again, going back to whole, like, belief system, why you do what you do, why you believe what you believe. I had. I felt a great one growing up. And a big part of that, the leader really was my dad and my grandmother and my stepmother. Like, three core people in my belief system, my upbringing, but my dad specifically, he was my best friend, he was my mentor. I was equally as terrified of him as I did respect him. But just because it was out of this, like, fear of. I never want to let him down. I never want to let them down. It was no, like, fear of, like, actual, like, physical trauma, anything like that. But. And he served, and my. Basically every male in my family served. And so I wanted to, like, I want to honor his legacy. I want to serve as well. So I enlisted in the Military. I was fulfilling out what I thought he wanted with my life. And he was very proud of me, of course. So when I lost him, and I would it to answer your question directly is how did I deal with it? I did not.

How did he die?

I did not. Lou Gehrig's disease, als. I found out about halfway through boot camp. His letters became less and less. It became more my stepmom, or kind of just some vague concerns around some, you know, health issues and doctor's appointment. I found out right after I got out of boot camp that he was terminal. We all did. And from July 2003, 18 months, diagnosis, one of the most escalated cases the doctors had seen, I've ever seen. I literally became a prisoner's own body. And with that disease, your body just eats itself away. And when I deviated, when I thought I was dealing with it and I deviated from my path. I want to go home. I tried to quit the military and they were going to let me out. Based upon this family hardship. My dad was like, fuck no. With his literal last abilities to step, to walk, to talk. He flew from Virginia to where I was in Northern California. I was stationed up in Monterey. And he spent four days convincing me that you didn't do this because of me. You did this because this is your path, and do not let the end of mine prevent you from yours ever starting. And that he spent four days teaching me what it meant to live a life ever forward. This phrase, these two words that I had heard my entire life because he said it as kids. He picked it up from his time in the military. I. It was just. It was, it was detrimental. And so I didn't. And so then I stuffed it all down. And a lot of the work that I'm working through now and studies, you know, will show no wonder, Chase, you know, you blew out your hips and your back and tore your hamstring. You know, that's the root chakra. This deep rooted emotional trauma eventually led to this physical trauma. And then after that, you know, I spent about 10 years stuffing it down, stuffing it down, festering and wounding myself and so many other relationships and just people around me. And then, thankfully, the right person came into my life. My wife now and Josh. I was suffering ptsd. I would have panic attacks, anxiety attacks. I would become unsafe behind the wheel of a car, and I would hear a song that reminded me of him. We'd be out in a movie theater, someone would die. I would have a breakdown. And she was like, no, you can't Live like this. She called me out like, chase, you're going through all this personal development work, right? You're in the gym, you're becoming a better person, but you are completely denying you are suppressing this other area of your wellness. And so, you know, thankfully, you know, she was in my life, and she helped me work through that. And then I began to realize what we're talking about earlier, that I can physically get better through physical work, but I need to emotionally get better through emotional work. And it took me 10, 11 years to honestly, like, recognize that I did not deal with it and to allow myself to just ask for help. Mental health talking, opening up to my family. Yeah, the very first episode of the podcast, a little intro, it was. I really opened up for the first time and talked about the whole reason I launched ever forward radio. January 22, 2017. His. His memorial, the anniversary of him passing.

What an honoring man. I was getting chills the whole time you were sharing there, because why else are we doing anything that we do if it isn't to connect and serve the people that we care about?

Absolutely, man. Amen.

And that's everything to me, because it's one thing to make money and to be rich and have wealth, but why the hell are we even doing any of this? Why are we even here on the planet in the first place if we're not doing it to connect and serve with people that we care about? And when I hear a story like yours, I'm like, man, what a power vacuum that was created. And so it's a deep honor to.

Me, to your father.

It's a deep honoring to your father to be like, wow, if and how he sees you now. If you believe that people can see us and that spirits are around us, and if you believe in the 3 and 4 and 5Ds, I have a sense that your dad is watching you, and he's so, so proud.

Thank you, man. I appreciate it. I believe it.

He really is proud. And. And I feel that, man. I really. I feel that. And I. I think that people can make choices. You could. Because you and I have both interviewed a lot of people on our podcast about people that have loss. And I always ask the guest, I'm like, okay, well, what was the little thing inside of you that made you choose to go forward or to choose that something happened to you that you use as anger and bitterness and resentment to actually stop serving the people that you care about? So there's got to be some secret sauce inside of you that made you choose to go forward. Was it the way that he spent four days with you? Was that the recipe of how you chose to serve and move forward, or was it something else?

Yeah, it's a really good question. That definitely was a part of it. But also, this may still be an excuse, but this is just another part of my story, the puzzle there. I felt so torn about not being able to be there for. For him and my family. And they all assured me, like, no, Chase, like, it's okay. We're good. We have help. Like, the family was coming together, but I was literally on the other side of the country sometimes on the other side of the world.

Yeah.

And I was just. I know I need to be there. I want to be there. But every time I was, I would go back and I would see him and he was worse and worse and worse. It was this dichotomy of how bad I wanted to be there with him and my family. But every time I did. And this is where the pts. PTSD set in from military him. Military him was. He was just. He was becoming this just unrecognizable human being. And it, like, my hero was just being torn away from me. And so a big part of that was when I got out, that's why I immediately went back to. Back home to Virginia. I was like, I'm doing nothing but being around my family. In some ways, that was great, but other ways, now I'm looking back, it's like that was me interjecting my agenda and what I thought was the overall good for my family on them. In a lot of ways, it's just what I wanted because I thought that's what I needed to feel better. They didn't necessarily need me. I'm sure it was great to have me around again, but, you know, I. I'm the oldest of three. I'm the big brother. I was a leader in the milit military, and my driving need to kind of like serve and just be present was also a big contributing factor to that.

Yeah, this leadership quality, man. And I'm. I'm the youngest, so my. My brother, I love and respect and. Do you have a brother and sister or what's your family?

I'm the oldest of three. My sister's in the middle, then my younger brother.

Did anyone else serve in the military?

No. We have a cousin and other family members, but just in my generation, just me.

Yeah. So I'm from this Italian culture where I'm half Sicilian, half English. And it's interesting, the culture of family and how that directs Relationships, intimate relationships we have. And I know you actually did one recently with your wife. You talked about relationship dynamics and how she's in the Persian culture and you know, the trials, the struggles and the successes of that. And I'll just share for me like I'm in a brand new relationship now and she is so my queen. It feels so amazing, man. It took me three and a half years of doing deep work and I'd love to riff with you back and forth on this. You know, there's a path that we all choose and relationships, the whole conduit of a relationship is to move forward, to move ever forward. So I think when I understand like what it means to be in relationship, it really starts with the relationship with Josh Trent. It really starts with the relationship of who Chase tuning is like if I don't have a quality loving, self worth, self love based directive and narrative, nothing else is going to flourish from that. And so it seems to me like you had 10 plus years of like learning what it was to get rid of trauma and replace that with self love, self worth. And I don't care who we are, all roads, especially in intimate relationships, all roads lead to self love and self care. That's basically it. What have you done in your life to really cultivate self love? And this is like a kind of woo woo for some people, you know, like, especially people in the service. Like what do you mean self love? Pussy, right?

What do you mean feelings? Yeah, I can't shoot a feeling like, right.

It's hard, it's hard to talk about things sometimes to quantify it. But you and I, we don't have to go esoteric, you know, we can just have a real conversation about it. So what are the qualities and what are the things that you cultivate on the daily or the weekly that are really aligned with self love?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, for me, I think this answers your question is proper attention in align with my community. And yes, I had 10, 12 years of, I will say what I thought was me working through things. I was physically healing from my traumas and my injuries and I then began to find value and worth in that. And then it put me on the path for kind of this emotional healing, spiritual healing. But along that way, the biggest contributing factor for me was being able to align myself with the right community that was going to not allow me anymore to just make up this wonderful world of like, oh yes, good job Chase. Like you went to the gym or you saw a therapist or like you did a thing. Yeah, but no you need to keep doing the things. And I didn't have those people in my life. And part of it was probably me, you know, me aligning the people or choosing to keep them around. But it wasn't until. Yeah, really? When? Yeah, 10, 12 years later, and I met May. And in her nature, in her culture, definitely the Persian culture, they'll call you out on. But she was like, no, like, open up. Like, you're only telling me the things that you think I want to hear. You're only telling me yourself the things that you think you need to hear. But that's not truth. That's not your truth. And this was flat out, like, week two or three of us dating.

That's.

She got real, real fast.

You got to the truth early. This is exactly what happened with me and Kerry Michelle. You get to the truth real early in the start of a relationship, and that's the bedrock for success, I think.

When you know it's real, like, I think you can tell right away, like, wow, she. She and I both are that way. We're like, yes, this is it. Like. Like day one, day zero. We joke. We started dating. We met. It's. We've been separate. And she called me out on this, like, week two or three. And I'm. I was so grateful for it. I am now. But. But then. And that was the catalyst of where, like, oh, wow. Like, okay, maybe some of these people in my life aren't contributing to my growth. Maybe I'm not contributing to their growth. And that was really the catalyst I needed to open up and improve my community so that I could ultimately open up and improve myself.

You know what's sometimes the hardest medicine to swallow for all of us is that the people that we love the most may unconsciously or consciously be sabotaging us. And we all kind of wince and flinch on that one because, God, it's so interesting in my friend dynamics. And tell me what you think about this. Sometimes I have a sense that people don't even know. They don't know. It's like landmark. Have you done landmark?

Or have you heard of landmark?

So in landmark, they have this term. It's called a blind spot. It's emotional intelligence training. And in the blind spot, someone doesn't know that they don't even know. So even if they wanted to not know, they wouldn't even know that they didn't know. Right. So it's totally in their blind spot.

Someone might need to hit the 30 seconds back real quick. And Rick, be that basically, you can't.

See it even if you wanted to because of a program. They call it a racket that runs. And a racket, an emotional racket, is when someone has a way of being that hides the hurt that they have. So a racket for someone in an A type dynamic of power might be they're always the one that buys all the groceries, does all the things, is the first responder. Like they're always on scene and they're always taking care of everyone else because there's a part of them in the dark, in their blind spot that they don't think they're worthy or that there's some kind of self love piece missing. And so by shining light on other people all the time and by being the person in control that's seen and valued by the public eye as worthy, it kind of puts a temporary salve on the blind spot. And I've felt that for a long time in training, I mean, 10 years I was a personal trainer. 10,000 sessions. Plus there was not a day that went by where I didn't wake up or go to bed with some kind of an empty hunger in my stomach.

Yes.

And I think if I'm being really honest, it's because the majority of us that get into fitness or service or practitioning or whatever it is, it's because we're lacking that relationship with ourselves. You know, whether it's Gretchen Rubin or Tom Bily or anybody talking about it, the first step of intelligence for our emotions, the very first thing, is awareness. Like, if we're aware of who we are, if we're aware of how we feel, that's where it all begins. But we live in a culture that's like caffeine, drugs, porn, sex shopping, overworking. It's all these tools and weapons of mass distraction that just compress our awareness and they shrink our bandwidth of awareness so we never have a deep dive, a true understanding of our awareness. But then, but then here's what happens. A man or a woman, you know, for you it was your lovely wife. For me it's this wonderful woman from the desert coming in. They come into our lives and they crack us open and they're like, oh, so true. You think what's, you think you know what's going on. You think you. And it works for men and women both.

Yeah, yeah.

You think you know what's going on. Let me show you your blind spots. By me just being me and together we grow. That's the real essence of a relationship. And so I don't. I Don't like, I know Aubrey, Marcus and Kyle and all these people have open relationships. That's fine, because maybe that's their path. I think the greatest conduit for personal growth in anyone's lifetime ever is a conscious coupling, is an intimate relationship. You will bring up more triggers, more bullshit, more back and forth, more growth in general. It is an accelerated growth curve towards love and potential being in a conscious relationship.

Let's go deeper there, man. So it sounds like I again seen the same, like, fire and energy run through you as the other conversation we're having before. Someone listening who is maybe in a new relationship, or maybe they've had this conversation where their new significant other kind of called them out or just said something, not in like an aggressive way, but just said something that stirred up something in you, made you feel a little uncomfortable. And if it makes you feel uncomfortable, odds are they're kind of probing for some truth. So how do we go through that? How are you going through that? How can we kind of be aware, be aware of this emotional intelligence stirring up in this new relationship?

I think our triggers are our biggest teachers. So if I have a trigger, it's either teaching me that I have contrast of something I don't want, or it's teaching me of something that is good for me and I just haven't processed it yet. So on one side we have of the trigger, think of a light switch, right? When you go to a room and you flick a light switch up, the light turns on. Well, the whole time, we didn't know that our trigger was down because nobody had ever flicked it before. So when these women and men come in our lives, they flick our light switch, they flick our trigger, and all of a sudden, bam. We're illuminated in a room with brand new things that we'd have never seen before.

And like the light switch, they didn't create that energy. That energy was always flowing to that same switch.

Exactly.

It's always been there.

Exactly.

We just needed the right person to flick, flick it on.

This is why I love podcasting with a podcaster. Because we can communicate in metaphor, like LL Cool J. Like, we can just talk without actually.

Saying, my first name is James. Ladies love cool James.

So. So what's really cool about this, this is that, you know, as uncomfortable as the light turning on in the room is it was there in the dark anyways. It was already there. So if I have things that are. Here's a good example. Here's a reference expectation. So one of the dynamics in a relationship In a conscious coupling is around expectation. If I have a way of being that is derived on what I will receive in return. So in other words, my only way of being is that I do and I act from a space where I'll know I'll get something back. And it's a hard expectation that I have. That is a human behavior that is ripe for decay. It is ripe for transformation. It is ripe for trigger. So if I, for example, am in a relationship and I only buy things for her because I know that she'll give me, like, love and a hug back, and you know, I love you, baby. Thank you so much.

You're talking about Persian women.

No, maybe I'd love to learn about Persian dynamics.

But we've gone through five love languages. Hers is gifts, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Mine is physical touch. And thankfully, so is my ladies. So anyways, the reason the metaphor is like, okay, we all have the light switch on the wall. The man or the woman comes into our life, they flick the light switch up because they're just being them and you're just being you. All of a sudden the room is illuminated with all the things that were in there in the dark. And now we get to talk about it. And what's most comfortable, most comfortable is keeping in the dark. Just like, like being in service jobs and shining light on other people, then you don't have to deal with the parts of yourself that are dark. But in a relationship, there ain't. There ain't nowhere to hide, my friends. There's nowhere to hide.

The lights are on. The spotlights are on.

The lights are on. You can see the dirt under the bed. You know, the, the. The spot on the wall, all the stuff that's been mashed down by caffeine, porn and everything else in the world.

The.

The weapons of mass distraction. So when we go to this one aspect of human behavior where I'm only choosing to be or do or give in a certain way because my subconscious knows that all receive in return. Yes, that detrimental, fastest way to end a relationship, to have the coupling be starting in a place of disingenuousness. Because if I'm only doing something for somebody else because I secretly know I'll get something in return, well, then that is the energy that I bring to the relationship, then the whole relationship is built on me always getting something in return. Now I know what people are thinking. Wait a minute. Isn't my girlfriend or my boyfriend or whoever I'm with, Aren't they supposed to give me Love. When I give them something, I mean, it's nice, it's a preference. But if that's our motivation to give or to love or to even just be in the relationship, then it's starting off with the wrong energy. And there's a coach that I don't know if you've heard of him. He's in Austin, Texas. His name is Brandon Hawk, and he's a really powerful coach, and he does a lot of deep intelligence work. And I love this. He says the energy of how something is started will be the energy of how it is sustained. And so feel into that for a moment. If I'm starting a relationship and I'm starting with expectation, I'm starting with, it should be this way or it has to be this way. Instead of just taking a deep breath and just letting it unfold organically, then I'm starting with the kind of energy that I'm going to need to white knuckle for it to be sustained.

That's so true, man.

Yeah, that's so. That's. That's one aspect of the light switch.

Yeah. Think about that. The energy has always been there. I mean, when you go to turn on that switch, I mean, unless the power's out, I mean, I don't know, the analogy could be debunked. No, the energy is always there. That is always. It's always been in there in us. And either we knew it was there, we knew the switch was there or not, but once it's flipped up, like, you can't go back.

That's. Yeah.

The Pandora's box has been open. I love where this is going. And actually, this is. This brings up something in me that I. Going back to, like, the whole millennial aspect.

Yeah.

I feel. And I've been out of kind of like the dating game for a while, but I really feel like people this day and age, and I'll say millennials, or just dating now in general, all these weapons of mass distraction, definitely, like we're talking about, it allows us this false inability. We think it's inability, but it's a false inability to create our own world because we can live in our phones, we can live in our cameras, we can. We can do whatever we want whenever we want. We can get it yesterday, we can Amazon prime now our life in every way possible. So honestly, is it our fault or is it society's fault? Is it just our conditioning? If I can do all of these things in my life with extreme pace and get an extreme result, why can't I Get that my relationship, you know, how do we solve that, though?

I think to be in relationship is to let go of having the instant gratification model. Ever be a thing? I don't know any relationship that I've ever seen that's successful, where we treat it like an Amazon Prime. But what's fascinating is in unhealthy dynamics. And if you look at attachment styles, a really good one is Andrew De Gregorio, who'd be a fascinating guest for your show. He came on Wellness Force twice. He talks about the attachment styles. You know, are you avoidant? Are you the kind of person that is codependent? Are you a dependent or are you an independent? There's all these different attachment styles, and those attachment styles come from zero to seven. Chase, like. And you know this because you're doing work on it, and you have been doing work on it for a while now. Everything that happens from zero to seven, science proves this.

Yeah.

The hemispheres of the brain are still connected 0 through 7. As we go from 7 and onwards, the hemisphere starts to separate. That's why we have right brain people dominant and left brain people dominant. But when we're children, we're basically on drugs.

Oh, my gosh.

We're in theta state. We're in theta brainwave for seven years. So we're. So we're literally the analogy I could make. We're like a bed of roses. You know, roses are beautiful and they smell amazing, but they can be trampled very easily. So it's really important, the first seven years of life, that those roses are cultivated with water and sunshine and love and the right kind of dirt and everything else, and that they're not trampled. But what happens is we have parents that have been trampled themselves.

Oh, my gosh.

And then they unknowingly, they're not doing it because they want to. They're trampling their children's roses because it's the only model they know. And so really, waking up, or consciousness elevating consciousness, comes from a conversation like this where we're just talking about the truth. We're just pulling back the curtain a little bit and saying, decades and decades.

Later, mind you, decades later.

But this is the process of waking up. I mean, it takes us, you know, eight to nine hours to sleep, and then we wake up after eight to nine hours. Extrapolate that. On a human behavior standpoint, it sometimes can take a decade or two before people begin to wake up, if ever. And what scares people the most is the thought of waking up because of all the roses that have been trampled, they might have to look at.

I would even dare say I. I was asleep for the first 29 years of my life. From, like, 27 to 29. Yeah. That's when all these things that we've been talking about, I began to fully acknowledge and willingly work through. And it's not that I completed that work in two years. It's just it took that amount of time for me to become aware of my own. My own ego, my own self, the ego and. And self of so many other people. And to go through, like I was saying earlier, the filtration of the community, to really. To understand what it means to be able and to allow myself to love myself. And I couldn't have done that any sooner because I didn't know who I was. And I've said this before, like, how can you fully love someone if you don't know who the hell they are? You love your significant other. You love your parents, you love your dog. Why? Because we know who they are. We know what they do for us. We know who they are in the world. So I think people listening, like, do you love yourself? And if not, do you know yourself? Start there. And that's. That was the most important work that I needed to do. I had achieved fitness. I was rehabbed to a significant state. All these parts of my puzzle were coming together, but it's like all the pieces were there, but they just kept kind of like loosely coming apart again. Because the glue that needed to hold it all together was this emotional intelligence work in this loving of myself.

Another fantastic metaphor. I mean, no.

And this is a drinking game. How many analogies can two podcasters make in an episode?

Legitimate, though, this is the true lens of intelligence, is communicating by metaphor. And if you look at how the ancient cultures did it, Native Americans, even if you look at how Paul Check communicates, or just anybody that's been around for multiple decades in our industry, they communicate powerfully through metaphor. And so, you know, this is a cool jam.

Storyteller, storytelling.

This is a cool jam with you, because all of these metaphors have deep roots in the truth. It's not like we're trying to be metaphoric. It's just how we're communicating.

I'm not a writer. I'm not.

I'm not a philosopher, because words and esoteric speak and kind of like getting into the weeds with linguistics, it can turn people off. But you can be 6, you can be 90, you can be 45, you can be from California or Alabama. And everybody understands the language of metaphor, the language of story. And I think right now, why podcasting is just having a resurgence is because on a podcast that's rich, like this one, I love this. There's nowhere to hide. Right. You can tell in someone's voice if they're being canned. You can feel it in the tone of their. Of their box, their voice box, if they're not being themselves. And when I, When I look at my first 50 episodes, I was doing the best I could. I was being the self that I, that I, I wanted to be. But that self wasn't really connected to the aspects you and I are talking.

I'm raising my hand right there with you, man.

That self wasn't like, I didn't really love Josh Trent in 2015. I, like, kind of did.

And I, I was in life.

I had read books on stuff. I had read lots of books on self love, but I. But I was in. I was like stuck in the gathering phase.

Yeah.

And what's made the difference, man, has been, has been going through, going on this ever forward path that you talk about. Like, going through. This is actually the only way you know whether you believe in Ryan Holiday. Like, the obstacle is the way everybody's got different ways of describing.

I read him every day.

Do you?

The Daily Stoic. The first thing I read every morning for three years now, the first post on all my social media is that day's Daily Stoic. I've got all of his books in my bookshelf. I just gave one to my videographer yesterday. Unreal, timeless.

How do you blend stoicism and expression in your life?

It's like what I think you were just saying is this, this necessity of analogy and storytelling. Because, let's face it, these things that I'm reading, we're talking about Ryan Holiday, his works in Stoicism. Thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago, like bc, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, all of these philosophers saying things, writing things in their, like, personal journals and speeches. They didn't even know if there's any civilization tomorrow. Yeah. But they have stood the test of time because they are speaking universal human truths through the art and the lens of storytelling. And if you can do that, it doesn't matter what you're saying, because how you're saying it is always going to be understood. And this is why I was getting so excited. When you're talking about the podcast platform, of course we're a little biased because, you know, we're both podcasters. Yeah. But this has been not only a great area for how I have gone through my own kind of realization of some things lately, beginning to better fully understand my story, but actually just I did a public speaking event last weekend about this, how to get better at telling your story. And you can do that by learning how to understand and read your own story first. And that's what I love about podcasts. It is this, this art. And I would agree, after like the first 50, hell, even like 100 episodes, I was just doing kind of what I thought I needed to do, be a good podcaster. But no, once I really recognize and again continue to go through my personal work, work was that it's storytelling and I don't need to get the most. You don't need to get the most PhD letters after their name. You know, scientists who can just say all this garble. No, people are going to respond. People are going to understand and comprehend. More importantly, people are going to apply stories that they can understand and relate to. Yep. Josh, how do we. How do we understand our stories?

That's the most loaded question I've heard in 2019.

How do we put ourselves in the position to understand that, first of all, everyone has a story, right? You've lived, so then how do you understand? How do you read it?

All right, so using the model of all these great philosophers teachings and the same model that's been repeated by the Rubens, the Bill Use, and everyone else. Let's start with the awareness first. And a lot of people use morning pages as a way to download. Some people use Scrivener to write a book. Other people do blogs every day. You know what it really begins with? Man. And this is gonna sound so simple, but I want this to land for everyone. Start with where you are. Do what you can with what you have. I don't know who said it. It resonates the truth for me. Just start. Just start. I mean, Sword in the Stone, Archimedes.

Oh, my gosh.

This is one of my favorite mentors when I was a child. This is why I love certain movies because they have such radical lessons. And he talked about, like, just starting. I mean, that's it. These little kids are receiving this message from a Disney movie. Like, literally, start where you are. Because the kid didn't pull out the sword and the stone unless he tried, right? And we're all working on our own story. We're all working on our own separation, initiation, and return to be our own Sword in the Stone, sword puller. We're all working on that. So start with where you are. What does it look like tactfully, though? So nuts and bolts. What I did is that I started looking at how other storytellers were telling their stories. So I. When I started, I would look at like John Lee Dumas, or I would look at like a jt or I would look at my friends in the space and I would. I would study them. I would. I would very conscientiously study how masterful storytellers were telling their story. And then I would go home and I would write like a press page, or I would write like a media kit, or I would just practice it all. And I can't tell you how many times I've updated that story. And now I can tell the story with no notes from my heart because I've practiced it so many times. And I don't need to have notes to tell who I am, because I just know who I am because I've practiced explaining it and articulating it. And I think from a tactical perspective, first have the self awareness to just start where you are and just write down what you think your story is and don't judge it. That's a big piece of. Start with where you are, with what you have, and don't judge. Don't judge yourself. Remove judgment, which.

That takes work in and of itself.

That takes work in itself. And that's a whole podcast, right? Like, Michael Gervais was on the show and he said, like, really, what is presence? Presence is the awareness of any moment without judgment. That is.

Say that again, please.

Presence is the awareness of any moment without judgment.

So important.

So that's presence, Right? And this is spoken from one of the leading psychologists in the world. So if he's saying it, and he's a spiritual man that also has deep roots in academia and works with professional athletes, I'm going to learn from him. I'm going to pause and take that in. So when we start with that lens of awareness, then go to the mentors and the people in your space that you think are telling really good stories, and then go home and practice telling your story in a similar mirror of theirs. And we all do it. Look, I'll be honest. When I first started, I would, like, listen to a mentor and kind of copy a little bit of what they were doing. And then over time, my story became an amalgam of all the mentors that I liked. And I would put it all into a page. And then when I had my Come to Jesus moment in Vegas with my coach, I Threw it all away because I had done so much practice that emotionally, spiritually, it came through where I just wrote it right there. How I felt, who I am and what is my story. And right after that, I had my first speaking gig ever at Sean Croston's Mastermind, the Underground Wellness Mastermind. And my. So funny, you were saying last week you had a speaking gig. The title of my speech was how to Speak youk Truth.

Oh, that. Look at this shit.

So we're like, we're lined up here, you know.

Oh, man.

And I. And I talked about this, this core belief system. A lot of our story, Chase and you, everyone knows this is true. A lot of our story is about forgetting beliefs that don't serve us anymore.

Like, yes, Mic drop. Like, yes.

That's like everything for us. So in that speech, which I'll link it in our show notes, because I think it's really beneficial, I became aware in my emotional intelligence work that I had three massive poisonous beliefs that came up from childhood.

What were they?

And they were people can't be trusted. Money causes pain. Expect the worst to happen.

It's not some easy pills to swallow there, man.

No surprise. Those beliefs caused a lot of stress in my system. But throwing them up in plant medicine, breathing them out in breath work, experiencing them through trainings like Mitt, going to Somatic, experiencing, doing the shit, applying my awareness, that's what led me to the place of letting them go. And what's interesting is that if you look at Dr. Vernon Wolf and the Hollow Dynamics movement and you think about what is a negative thought, what is a positive thought? They're energies. There's negative energy in the world. There's positive energy in the world. This whole branch of science called holodynamics is so fascinating to me. I'm like really digging into that.

Term's new to me. I have to check that out.

Yeah, I met with this guy in two hours in Arizona. It was unbelievable. I got to go to his house. It was almost like, you know that scene in the Matrix when he meets with the African American woman and she's baking cookies?

Oh, yeah. What's her character's name? Oh, she's like. Like, she's the gatekeeper, the key. The key maker.

No, she's the. She's like the sage. Anyways, we all know. So somebody right now is like shouting.

Yeah, she's got that kid who's bending this. There is no spoon.

There's no spoon. So I felt like I was having Oracle. Oracle, exactly. I felt like I was seeing an oracle, because this guy, he came in, I sat down, and he said, so what is time?

That was.

That was his first question. He's like, so what is time? And I was like, oh, God, I'm in for an interesting conversation right now. But. But to bring it back, like, these three core beliefs, they're just positive and negative energies. And this is what I wanted to say. The majority of beliefs that we have that we've done the awareness work to know aren't serving us are actually not ours at all. Nope, they're not our beliefs at all. They're passed on from generation to generation. Think about when my grandfather came over here, or when my great grandfather came over here from Sicily. He came to a boat that entered a dock where he had a white chalk mark scraped on his chest, and he was told that he'd never amount to anything and that he actually had to change his name. Can you imagine the type of emotional scarring that came from that? Which was then transferred to my grandfather, which then went through the Great Depression in World War II, which then my mother was born into that. And then I came for my mother. We are all. Whether we're conscious or not, we are all borrowing beliefs about scarcity, poverty, negativity, anger, resentment, fear. They're all downloaded epigenetically. And if you look at the science on epigenetics, we're all born with certain characteristics. Those characteristics only turn off and on if we're in the right environment for them to turn off and on for.

Yeah, having the right person to flip the switch.

You know, having the right person to flip the switch.

So.

So the long winded, kind of fun story here explanation is that the core beliefs run everything. And there's a movie that I want everyone to watch. You get to watch this with your niece or your nephew or just with your wife or your husb. And it's called Inside Out.

Oh, yeah, the Pixar movie, right? That was so, so deep.

So good.

I was like, what about this is a kids movie? Like, what the hell? Like, there's some deep shit going on here.

Such a great movie, man. And. And that is literally the crux of what you and I are talking about is, are these beliefs yours? And if they're not, do you have the courage to push them aside? Can you cultivate the courage with your community, with your podcasts, with your work, with who you are as a. As a human being, a divine human being that is brought here only once, forever? There'll never be another Chase Tuning. They'll never be another Josh Trent, ever. They won't exist. Can we honor that? Yeah, can we honor that? And can we move forward?

Which is scary. It's empowering, but it's scary. And this is where I think a lot of people can even get stuck in this. They get this far in the work, right? And once you get, you know, this far in the self development and the physical development, you're like, like, holy. Like, exactly what you just said, man. Like that, like, that's a lot. Like, that can feel like a heavy responsibility. But don't quit there. Don't quit there.

Yeah. Choose to not quit.

Absolutely. And I will echo a lot of things you were just saying. And I'll remind my audience again here. They've definitely heard me say this before. That, like, okay, cool, Chase. Cool, Josh. Like, you guys, you've been talking about your travels and your platforms and mentors and coaches and all these things, and I think people too often forget we. Nobody starts like that. Well, maybe you do. Maybe you just. You immediately.

Some people do.

Yeah, some people do.

Some people start higher up on the mountain. Here's exactly at the bottom, my friend.

Absolutely. I was in. I was in a ditch at the bottom. You know, I was like, you were in a foxhole.

I was literally, literally in a foxhole, which is actually.

It stings a little because that's how I got injured. I was in a foxhole, popped up, and that was my physical injuries.

Wow.

Yeah. So I was literally, emotionally, spiritually in a foxhole. And that was the beginning of my work, man. But you didn't start at the top. I didn't start at the top. And I. People, listen, listen right here, right now, get a piece of paper. Do what I did. I walked to CVS from my apartment in Northern Virginia. I bought a four or five dollar Mead journal and just started pouring my. My. I thought I was getting my thoughts out, but I was really pouring my heart out. I was spilling my soul and just anything and everything that I was feeling. All of my fears, all of my aspirations, all of the. I can't believe this person did this to me. To the, like, I'm gonna rule the world kind of one day, just brain dump, heart dump, and then sort through it. And that was the beginning of my work coupled with. Again, man, you know, high five to you, man. Like, literally finding podcasts, finding books, choosing to go seek these types of things out, finding wellness force, like, okay, I can't travel across the world. I can't move. I can't buy this Coach, I can't go to the seminar. You can write things down, you can type it on your phone. You can go to your phone and listen to free content.

Like this life changing content for free.

Yes.

We have so many tools that our parents never had. We have zero excuses, my friend. Zero.

Yeah.

There's no excuses.

You can, you can prime now your personal development. Like I was saying earlier, we, we can get it now.

Exactly.

Okay. I can't go to this conference or whatever. Like, hop on your phone, hop on the computer, hell walk to Starbucks, look on the community board. There's gotta be something there. Like. Yeah, there's no excuse. Absolutely.

This has been amazing with you.

Likewise, my friend.

I love this conversation, man. What a special energy exchange. What a unique electron transport you and I have had this afternoon.

Every time. But definitely today for sure.

Definitely today. Today was really special because I just have this sense that people have felt in their hearts, in their nervous system, and even in their mind. For the analytical people, this conversation explored some really incredible topics and the journey still continues. Like, we're still here, man. We've made it. If you're listening to this podcast, if you have breath in your lungs, if you have a roof over your head, if you have three meals a day or snacks, you are doing so much better than most people. And that is really the recipe for living our life well, dude, is perspective. And I know you have a signature question on your show, so I'd love to trade this with you right now. If you were to encapsulate living life well, really, the meaning, the energy, the, the gravity behind it, how would you define wellness? Like, how do you see wellness in your life? What does that mean to you? To live life well, to be well.

I'll kind of say like semi. Woo, woo, semi. Like real tangible stuff. Maybe just because I'm getting into my 30s and know where I'm in life.

But you're doing more yoga too.

Oh my gosh, yes. My mind, my body needs it.

Yeah.

The only thing that matters is how did you love? Love? How did you love? And that means how did you love your neighbor? How did you love yourself? Absolutely. The most important thing, the only thing that matters is how did you love? And at the end of the day, that's all I wanted. My capsule. It's all I wanted. My wellness capsule. That's all. If I could define it in one word, it would be that. Because from that, like love with the gym, love with walking, love with my food, love with my significant other, love with myself, most importantly, Though, hands down, it's got to be it.

Yeah, it's so interesting. I was at a church last year. Michael Pollan, who wrote how to change your mind, he was on Stephen Colbert talking about psychedelics and therapy.

That's in two books that's on my audible list.

It's a really amazing book. And one thing he said that just. It just imprinted for me forever. He said, you know, the truth loves to hide in plain sight. And when the hippie said, love is all there is, the reason those hippies were made fun of is because the truth is sometimes so simple and so powerful and so real and raw that sometimes the emperor doesn't wear clothes. You know, we all know the truth, but it's almost like we're afraid to just acknowledge it. So I don't care if you're an analytical or a spiritual person. What you just said applies scientifically and spiritually to everyone. So thank you, bro. I really felt that from you, and it's a testament to the work that you've done, and. And it's why it took us so long to be here to get this podcast rolling.

It took us the exact amount of time. Necessary. Yeah.

Everything's divine. Timing.

Yeah, absolutely, man. I mean, again, I've said this before, several times in this to you. Thank you for all the work that you have done, that you've continued to do. And like I said in the beginning, if you had quit, if you had stopped, if you had decided that this is too much work or it's getting too uncomfortable, I don't know if I would have kept going. I mean, who knows? Maybe, but I don't know. And that is such a reminder. That's why it's so important to keep these mentors, these beacons, these guiding posts, guiding lights in your life, because as important as they are for you, they are also teaching you how to do that and be that for the people behind you. What is it, the rule of thirds in your life? Right. Always keep a third of the people in your life above you in terms of, like, who you seek to learn from, and the third of the people at your level, so to speak. You know, you can kind of have that community and fellowship and a third of the people that are not behind you, but that you can also empower.

I like that.

I've never heard that before. Oh, no, it's, you know, three types of people to kind of keep in your life and just, you know, always be at a place where you can be comfortable with the people, quote, at your level. Here, but also have the people that you're striving to be like and just be on, not their path, but a similar path, something to help keep you pushing forward. And then also, it's just as important, I think maybe not even the most important, to have the people behind you that you need to help clear that path. And you can be that beacon and in that lighthouse for.

Really?

Absolutely.

Wow. This is powerful, man. And I definitely feel like, you know, with. With who listens to this podcast, they're going to move forward. And. And there's this question that you asked me. God, it was like, two years ago, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

How did you frame it?

You were like, the question we ask everybody.

Yeah.

What's your signature is how do you live a life ever forward? What does that mean to you? And hearing this conversation, and we've known each other for a couple years now, and you know. You know that that's the name, the brand, you know, and you know my backstory and what it means to me, but in getting to know people, I. I just want to know, what does that mean to you? How do you live a life ever forward?

Josh, the only way that I think life can be lived forward is without the absence of being tethered to fear. In other words, the only way that I can live my life forward is by being able to and having the courage and the strength to at any moment, say no to something that I know isn't serving me. And I heard Tony Robbins say this a long time ago, and he said, what does everyone want? Everyone wants to live free. Everyone wants freedom. Okay, well, what is freedom? Freedom is the ability and the capacity, the courage to say no to anything that doesn't align with my soul, that doesn't align with who I am. And so how do I see myself living a life ever forward? I see myself living life ever forward by practicing the cultivation process of saying no to anything that doesn't serve my soul. That's living a life ever forward.

And if you want to know how to do that, go back and start this podcast. Over all those things.

That's right.

If it takes you 10 years or, like, me, 29 years, whatever, that's how you do it.

Yeah. Chase. Thanks for today, brother. Love you. Support you. Wellness Force is completely behind you.

Likewise, my man.

And everything that we talked about today is in the show notes on both of our shows.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Just feeling really expanded, and it's been so fun, man. Thanks so much for this beautiful conversation.

It's been amazing. Welcome. Absolutely. Thank you for joining me, man. Holy. This is.

Hey, thanks for listening to the show, my friend. Everything you learned on this podcast starts with your morning practices. So from over 300 world class guests, we pulled together six simple yet powerful morning practices down into a 21 minute system guaranteed to increase your vibration and the way that you feel every day. Get this free powerful guide over@wellnessforce.com M21 and if you love this show, share it with somebody. Share it with somebody that you love or that you care about. You can support the show easily by leaving us a five star review on iTunes. Just go to wellnessforce.com review or if you're on your phone, just tap into it. Hit the link in purple that says review this podcast. And the journey does not stop here. We're continuing this discovering process in our private Facebook group over@wellnessforce.com group. You can be a part of it. You already are. All you have to do is join us@wellnessforce.com group and I will welcome you at the door. Now go out into your life and live your life well. And until I see you again real soon, I'm wishing you love and wellness.

Sam.