And quite frankly, I believe that, it'd be helpful if we all

spent more time in the present moment.

Cuz that's where our love is.

It's where our connection is, it's where, that's where our, meaning is.

and it's, yeah, sure.

We wanna plan and we wanna be intentional about where we

spend our time, effort, energy.

And it's nothing wrong with investing time to be spontaneous or creating

space to do the, all of these things.

But how intentional we are is really important.

Hello everyone.

Tim Winders here.

Welcome to Seek Go Create.

I have better voice this week than I did probably on the last.

If you listen to last week's recording, I was almost voiceless, had some kind

of scratchy thing going, I don't know.

my wife hasn't told me she thinks it's a sexy voice.

I'm just really hopeful that she thinks it is.

But, I've got a little raspy thing going, but, this is where we dive

into the minds of extraordinary individuals who are redefining success.

Today is no different.

We're looking for people that are living with intention.

And our guests today is we have Chris Yonker, he's the founder of

the Center for Conscious Living and.

Fulfillment.

And he's a performance coach.

He's author of the book that I did read a couple weeks ago.

Soul Intention, an Executive's Guide to Living a Life By Choice, not by Chance.

Love that title.

So today we're gonna talk to Chris and look at his unique methodology to

gain insights into how we can create lasting positive change in our lives.

Chris, welcome to Seek Go Create.

thank you.

I've been looking forward to this conversation.

I've been looking forward too, because I'm like going, man,

this is Guy, oh, I love the things he says and all that he stands for.

This is the first time we've spoken live, so let's pretend that I

just bumped into you, and I want to say, Chris, what do you do?

What is your response when somebody asks you that question?

I've changed the answer on that question over time.

I probably a lot of us entrepreneurs have done so.

it's interesting, I the simple answer today is I help people

get out of their suffering.

That's not why they call me, but it's really why they call me.

So that's not on your marketing materials or anything like that?

I was gonna say, I'm wondering how that would play out.

Yeah.

I just introduced to a family, this past week and I was talking to one

of the family members this morning and I said, really what you want is

a higher level of peace of mind, and, so that you can enjoy your life at a

higher level be so wrapped up and you know the pain you're experiencing,

if you will, around your pending

I think the reason that is, so cool how you responded is because

as someone who, some in some ways we have similar titles, I guess executive

coach, leadership coach, whatever.

And so when we talk to people about what we do, sometimes it, there's

tangible things, but like you just said, there's all these intangibles.

But I think those intangibles, it's really what, it's what it's all about and I

think it's so many times for me, maybe for you, I'm gonna ask it as a question.

It's really hard to communicate those intangibles.

Do you see that?

yeah.

That's a, it's a really good question.

So what and we experience our reality through our census, right?

and so what I'll, I contextualize and fact last sat the same person this morning.

I asked, I said, let's.

Let's pretend that we, let's pretend that we work together and then I work

with you and your family and let's just put ourselves out in our timeline.

Out into, out, out in December, and it's wrapping up the end of

the year and you've, as you look around you, what do you see?

What do you hear, what do you feel?

What are you experiencing that's changed over today?

That if you said, boy, I am so glad we worked with Chris and

his team and this is now what I'm witnessing, that's changed in my life.

And.

And so really what you're looking at is if there's like a baseline,

what is it, what's different now?

And I also, I hate to keep revisiting the timeframe of 2021

to 2020, late 2022 or whatever.

But have you noticed, cuz I know you've been doing this for a while, have you

noticed a significant difference in the way people respond to that as we

went into a covid and now post covid environment, that it's just really

thrown gas on the fire or made it hyper, made people more hyper aware of it?

what's been your observations going through that?

Because I've seen so many changes in myself and others.

What are you seeing?

and the first thing, especially for, and I work with people

internationally, so there's, depends on a little bit of a, for some folks it's, I'll

speak more for the western world, mo more.

Most of my clients are, it's, we got, and we don't really talk about our mortality

and there's a few things in life, right?

Our mortality and change, the two things that we resist the most

typically are inevitable, that we all are going to experience.

There's always gonna be change right there.

There's I the idea around impermanence and also all going to die.

We don't know when it is.

with C O V I D was like, wow, it is real.

It was like, and remember, the vivid you to go back and say, what did you

experience, what do you remember?

It was like, New York, you, I have friends and I'm sure you did too

in New York City and, craziness.

And then like I, we actually knew someone who had kids in New York City.

they're young adults, but I call them they're kids, right?

And they came up here to New Hampshire.

He got it.

He died.

He was in his fifties.

And we're like, this is our backyard, right?

Like the first couple months.

And we're like, holy crap.

this is, like, when you experience something like that and then you're,

and and granted I'm not a huge fan of the media cuz I never really truly

know what all is real and not, and I don't like other people to think for

me, I like to think for myself, but regardless, there's still some le I,

we actually, I did have friends who had friends in hospitals in New York

to verify that, their bodies building up and there were like that was real.

And, that's a reminder and you cannot deny that reminder.

And the fact that something that you might work around or, try to,

try not to spend a lot of time, someone passes, you want to, it's the

funniest damn thing in our society.

But my experience has been, We gotta have the funeral and get the damn

thing over with and get it behind me as soon as possible, right?

So I can get back with my life.

Whatever the hell that means, I'm gonna get back to it.

I'm gonna get back into my life now.

so I can, in essence, in some cases I wanna get back to my sleepwalking

that I'm, cuz I, I think these events can be experiences to wake up and

realize that perhaps you can step out of the movie and think about the

movie that you're in instead of just participating without thinking about it.

so that, I think that the, the answer to your question, from my perspective is I

think that's the biggest vantage point.

And then also I think the other experience that we had is as we forced to

everywhere, see if it happened even more.

I'm like in Asia where people are just can't go anywhere.

you're locked in, no one's coming in, no one's going out.

you are who you are, and you're gonna spend time with these

people called your family and.

whoa, this is cool.

I'm gonna go for a walk and not feel guilty about it.

Cuz everyone else is doing that at one o'clock in the afternoon.

this is groovy.

the, it truly people outside Again, another experience to wake

up outside of the realm, outside the running, running, running.

Go, go, go, go, go.

Busy, busy, busy, busy contest.

Who's busy?

Are you busy?

I'm busy.

Oh my God.

How are you?

Busy.

I bet you're busy, huh?

I mean that, that conversation and slowed everything down to say, hey,

we can actually time together, we can actually connect and, I do value my life.

I do value my health.

I do value my family.

perhaps I might have been not a congruent in my behavior in valuing

these things regards to how I participated in my life Perhaps.

I might wanna make a change regard.

So I, for me, that, that was exciting for someone that works a lot with family

businesses to see the amount of folks who, just, say, you know what, maybe I'm

willing to let 10 things go right now make some changes with my business and

my family, or whatever that looks like.

Or in some cases, I had a lot of, last three years, I've had a lot

of exit business, people who are just privately held companies.

I work with the founder and owner.

what are we gonna do?

What's gonna be next?

Or people hire me who just sold their business trying to figure out what am

I gonna do with a place next for me?

So the fascinating thing about what you just said, first of

all, you triggered a lot of thoughts in my head and the thing you mentioned

about people coming to terms or grips with their, the life expectancy and all

there, we experienced that during the course of that my father passed away.

I.

I don't know how many funerals I attended, probably two that were virtual, that

were pretty much a horrible experience.

it was just really not well done.

I looked at somebody's back the whole time.

We tried to, but they didn't want people to be there cuz of all, and I get it all.

I do think it caused a bit of a, I hate to use this overuse, this

word reset, but a reset with things because my father passed away.

he actually was diagnosed with dementia right As the pandemic were started.

We also believe that the lockdown and things like that kind of accelerated it.

We can't prove that, but it just seems like it did.

he and mom were boxed in, couldn't go anywhere, things like that.

And but the fascinating thing was when he finally passed in December

of last year, all of us as a family just said, you know what?

He passed on a Thursday night.

We don't have to do a service on Saturday.

Or Sunday, why don't we wait until the spring?

Let's do a celebration of life.

it relieves a lot of stress for us, and we could go through the bit of

that grieving process and not deny what just happened, like you talked

about earlier, I think a lot of people are living superficial lives very.

Flesh oriented, what's going to make me happy today?

And I want to tie in the title of your book here.

We'll talk a little bit more about it later.

I've got a couple questions and highlights I want to go through,

but when I introduced you earlier, I said the title was Soul Intention.

And I wanna make sure the listener or the person watching this, it's

s o u l intention, not s o l E.

And what I think people have come in touch with, and you just said it just a minute

ago, is I think they're really looking more into their soul and seeing what's

my core values, what's important to me?

Not just what society says, not what the media, you brought

up the media and we could.

I don't care which side people are on, we don't need to be parking

our brains with the media giants and saying, what do you believe?

I should think so, I think that was really awesome.

so let's tie in.

We don't back away from spiritual stuff here and throughout your book

you brought up, you had some scripture, you had some eastern type stuff.

You had a lot of stuff in there, which, which I think is cool.

But let's go ahead and bring in the power of the spiritual aspect

to all that we've seen gone on and really all about who we are.

And I'll just bring it up that way and you just share whatever

you want to related to that.

Yeah.

when I privately work with someone, we're gonna dig into two questions,

I don't typically tell 'em this on the front side, but you're listening

right now, I guess you'll know.

the first one is, who am I now That's, that, I think these two

questions are quite frankly probably the biggest illusion, some of the

biggest illusions we have, right?

Who am I?

And we can go on and on about that one.

And it is some people might answer that, identify as a role I play in my life.

Which is not who you are,

Or title, or a simple title,

A title.

Yeah.

So these are

right?

labels.

human language is, is, I'm, I was trained in neurolinguistics programming,

and became a PR practitioner.

Practitioner.

And my, mentor had always said that, the human language is the, is I was

like a Bandler quote I think the biggest transfer is cuz it really, think about it.

Our language creates our reality.

We associate everything.

And there are, as there's probably languages that don't even have

words in them, like shame or guilt.

how is that possible, right?

Isn't it?

Wouldn't that be interesting that now even know what that construct is?

But that's sideline.

But who am I?

Who am I?

And then the other question I ask people to sit with I'll talk about sitting with

too, what I mean by that is why am I here?

And that question sometimes to go into, how's the world work?

And people might start thinking about like that, the whole

process of life in general.

Like, why am I here, Simpson?

And they're questions that I believe the answers can change throughout our lives.

Also, our perspective may change on those and we should be open to that.

But I don't, on my, when I work with folks and we're doing vision work,

built this hierarchy fulfillment.

And at the base of that, the first faith of the foundation is spirituality.

It's my context to.

And my book in chapter three, which I wrote that book a while, continue think

thinking about revising it, but just not feeling called to do so right now.

But cause a lot of what I've thought about at that time has changed a

little, not bad, but just re revised.

But, but that chapter three, I remember the chapter number and I remember it

was my most fav i the most important to me, the most important part of the book.

Cause there's a relationship to something beyond ourselves.

And I kind of question folks I, cause I had some clients and one in particular

I can think of who is, was a celebrity profile client had, very big follow,

in fact had two different names though.

One name was the name that you and I would know.

And another name was the name that everyone else knew.

And so that creates a little bit of

a

conflict on who I am.

that's for sure.

But also, they were very much, they were unhappy.

they're, they got, they referred to me cuz they're, they were just,

Having a hard time producing.

They're a creative person and their part of their work was around creativity and

they're let's call it writing music.

And and but that really was a problem, right?

the problem wasn't like, oh, how, come with strategies and be more creative.

Let's find a way that's, let's gotta get a little much deeper than that.

And needless to say, there's a lot of trauma from the past that we had to

get into, that was holding them where they were in their frame point of

who they were and why they were here.

And once we shifted those things, their lives totally, everything shifted, right?

and, but that's where the work really needed to go.

And you say, how did we learn that stuff?

comes from society, it comes from our parents, it comes from the people,

whoever we let into our world.

But there's a, there's an opportunity to really explore this relationship.

Was something beyond ourselves.

And anyway, so this person I did not was Aian Athe atheist.

And I'm a salesperson.

I started in sales in 1993, at 3 92 at 3m.

When I got hired in sales, I worked there for over 25 years before I left.

And so I have a sales background, which has been very beneficial to me.

so thought, what's the benefit of not believing in?

And what, what would be the benefit of believing?

Like it was just, let's just go there.

let's, and so anyway, I, we got to a point where they were

willing to think differently.

Like, well, how's it, And I had another person, that was part of

an organization I was working with.

And they had, they've, they was the kind of person where there's, this stuff

happens to them, crisis after crisis.

And the last crisis that ended up happening was he went down to.

It's when the islands got married and, he was, they were out having

got married, having a great time.

He was with his best man, his best friend his whole life.

And his wife was there and his best man and a couple of the people,

wedding party and the bridesmaids.

And they were just, they just had his little private, intimate ceremony, just

beautiful, the beach, everything else.

Why not had some drinks?

This happened, just a ball.

And his friend stepped out off the curb got ran over by a bus.

Think about that.

Boom, right there in front of him.

Seconds later, he is holding his friend said, and his

hand like this is legit, man.

You can't make this stuff up.

And the owner of that business out to me.

I was actually on vacation I told my clients there's every emergency.

this is, to me, this isn't, this is a situation like, he's dude, this happened.

He is like in a really bad place and he needs to talk us.

Like he needs to, I don't know what to do.

I said, all right, I'll call him.

So I did, and I still remember I was, we were in Grand Cayman and

remember the, I was sitting in the hotel room calling this guy and me

all the story and everything else.

And he is and he was like so mad he didn't have any faith structure.

And I'm like, man, this is the time.

I would, I would say that this is a probably a really good

time perhaps to start one.

Cuz I don't know if you can get through this alone.

don't think you can get to this alone.

And so the fact, the matter is that I said let's do this.

Why don't you just do this second and give you homework assign.

It's why don't you just.

Pray to, or however you would say, if God, if you're okay with that

word, pray to God it's God if you're really there, can you give me a sign?

And I'm like, I'm gonna go on, I'm gonna go on some faith here myself.

Because I don't, I know I, this guy's a, he is, he's a bit skeptical now,

so I don't know it's gonna happen.

And and I don't remember exactly what transpired to the detail, but

more or less what happened was, it was a realistic, weird situation.

He had just gotten back and he was driving down the expressway and the

bus that ran over was like a smaller bus and whatev, it was like a full

size, but it was like a, good size one.

there was a broken bust, same color on a trailer bed on the expressway right

next to him on, literally like the next, that day after we had that exercise, he

was like, and then also a song came on the radio that day was also something

they played at the, so it was Bang.

He was like, I just, the odds of these things, like I just, I don't know.

I'm like, what if it was now what?

And it opens up a container for possibility.

And if we can get out of the place of, cuz if we think you're in control, I think

we've got our challenge on our hands.

Now.

I'm not saying that we don't have authority and we

don't, God gave us choice.

have the choice what we think and what we do.

We, that was the gift he gave us.

So we do have, we have that, but we don't have full control

and autonomy over everything.

And if I think you do, you're nuts.

But there's a, I invite people into this idea of what if we can

co-create our reality on, on, on a field that's built on purpose?

So that's where I was going with that sole intention.

The reason that I think that is so interesting to me is that.

I've recently written some things in a novel that I wrote and the main character

was going through somewhat of a soul searching, just as you've mentioned.

And the thing that I used to define faith was very similar to what you

just said, and that is, Really, this is the way I'm wording it.

Just for quick reference, understanding that the world doesn't revolve around you.

That there's always something bigger than just you, because I think

you brought up that word control.

I think many high achievers, many people that are successful in business,

and I'll use air quotes, successful because I think success is relative.

That's why we redefine what success means quite a bit here, because

often it's not what we think it is.

it, it's really just having the perspective of there is something

in this world bigger than me.

and listen, if we're talking to someone who's hardcore into the ministry or

something, they don't quite get this.

They think, oh, we need to be talking about, throw a scripture at 'em, tell 'em

all about Jesus Christ, blah, blah, blah.

I'm going, yeah, I get that, but.

They're not ready for that.

They just need to understand that the world doesn't revolve around me.

I needed to know that when I was coming along because I really did think

that the world revolved around me and that I had a high degree of control.

And like you said, we do have authority.

We do have the ability to do things, we can speak things.

And there's N L P program, there's all these things that are

great, but at the end of the day, we're part of a bigger picture.

and I love how you brought that up and I do want to come back to some other

things related to the book shortly in just a moment, but there's something

that's been rolling around in my head that I wanna make sure that we clarify

and maybe get a few items related to that.

You work, primarily with family businesses and so I'd love for you

to say a couple things about that.

I've been a part of a family business that did very well and then disintegrated.

and I know that there's some uniqueness to all of that.

I've actually got some clients that have family business where husband

and wife work together, or there's some siblings and things like that.

But tell me Mo, because that's, I don't think that's your only niche,

but that's your primary niche.

Would that be correct?

Yeah.

I, it's probably 75% of the work that we're doing.

but it's not, yeah.

I would say a almost a hundred percent of our work and 90% of our work is

privately held companies, period.

And then a majority of that, two-thirds of three quarters is family held businesses.

because I I ended up finding me and then I pursued getting, become an FFI certified

family business advisor and understanding governance and things that would help me,

work with families at a much higher level.

yes.

so let's start with one thing that would be, I think, basic and

foundational for someone that might be listening, that might be a family business

owner, and then someone who may not, what are the biggest differences in privately

held family type business versus.

I don't even know how to, non-family type business or even something that's a little

more, it's, they've got investors or it's not privately held or something like that.

Just give a contrast to understand the things we need to understand.

Okay, so let's look at three, maybe three

different vantage points.

So you got one, you got corporate America.

Okay.

Corporate America, to me is where I came from.

3m, company that is publicly held, they're stock owners or it

could be a private equity company.

Okay.

So it's where there's, where in essence someone is looking and defining success by

a bottom line and a quarterly objective.

That's typically, I'm narrowing the scope here, but that's typically

the experience, my experience working at corporate America even.

And I've done some consulting projects when I have one right

now with a multi-billion dollar company that we're working with.

And my experience when working with these large organizations is,

outside of their bureaucracy, is that there's a lot more bureaucracy.

And also at the end of the day, my experience has been, That decisions are

being made on what's gonna be best for stock performance, quarter to quarter,

now, what's best for the customer now, what's best for the employee?

And that's what's best for the, for the world at large.

It's what's best for the, on our earnings and how we report.

Now, not saying they don't have any integrity, that's not that point.

It's just that we talk about values, we take, you do the same work.

we define core values.

We unpack core values.

So when someone can embody them, not just talk about them, but then

also we stack rank them, right?

And then we wanna deliver an integrity to what we stack rank.

And from my experience, the decisions are always being made was around what's gonna,

what's gonna drive the bottom line, what's gonna make stock look the best period.

So that's my experience with corporate America.

And why we don't do a lot of work there, but we do just some, the

1, 1, 1 quick, one quick pause for you there, Chris.

I'm very similar.

I came from corporate America.

I worked there about 10 years, and I have found that the work, it's good work.

It, it pays.

There's usually, I'll just say it this way, there's usually an extra zero

or so on the tail end of the fees.

And this kind of speaks to my core values.

It sounds like you're similar, is that it's harder to have an impact

Is

because of the structure and again, not saying

good or bad, it just is what it is.

And I've gotten to where I shy away from it because at the end of

the day I've gotten a bigger check and I'm not, I'm not trying to act

real virtuous or anything here.

It's just I don't feel as if I, and the work that we've done have

accomplished and made as much of an impact as I think these next two

areas you're about to share with us.

That's been my observation.

Yeah.

It's, and we, you're talking about, it's like I, you and I wanna drive

transformation, if we're working with an owner of a business that can make

decisions tomorrow, and have a larger impact on their, the buying clients, they

care about their employees, they care about their clients, they care about the

legacy of their business and the impact of their business on the greater whole.

And they don't necessarily stack rank any of those things.

those are all really important to them.

It's, and sometimes they may even lose money to do what's

better for the environment.

At times, they might do what's better for the employee than what's

better for their own pocketbook.

during Covid, we lost half of our business because we were working with smaller

clients at the time that the different portfolio and the clients that we were

working with, they were really impacted.

They're shutting down.

They weren't operating so, I kept my staff.

that'd be two my 10 90 nines.

I didn't cut anyone's hours.

I just cut mine.

I didn't pay myself, I just paid everyone else, right?

So like that there wasn't, I didn't even in question, I didn't

doing anything differently.

But that's, that's just a, held business owners will do things like that.

and the same corporate people are bad.

Don't get me wrong though.

I gotta listening.

that's that.

This has been my experience working with a lot of them.

the privately held space is someone owns a business, they started the

business, or could be, their parents owned it, they bought 'em out, could they

bought the business from someone else.

Could be any of these things.

but they're, I work with a business owner.

I don't typically, once in a while I'll do leadership projects and I, if I'm working

with leadership projects, it's with the executive team on 90% of the time.

time to time I'll get further down in the organization, but we like

to work with the owner and or the executive team cuz we want to have

the most impact we can period.

so that, that's where that, that lines up on the family business side.

And my definition of family goes, this is when you have two or more people

are in a family that have ownership and or involvement in the family business.

and it can be, can look a lot differently and different.

I have one family I'm working with where I'm nobody in the family works in the

business and it's a million company and no one in the family works in the

business, but they all have the ownership.

Okay.

They have a board, they have a c, a, non-family, c, e o, those things.

And they have control, but you know that the, they can look that way.

but typically what it happens, there's a, it's, this.

a typically taught in family business advising.

It's like the three circle model where you got a family member, you

got a business owner, and then you got someone who is in the business.

And these three circles can overlap and they can interlock

all different crazy ways.

that's where it gets a little complicated because you got family dynamics then you

got business dynamics and now they're all playing in mix in a business.

And it can get You take dysfunction in a family and there already

can be dysfunction in a business and they get them involved.

It can be, it's something that I've found that a lot of people, they

work around the problems that exist.

The, there, oh, there's a conflict here, there's heat here, or there's,

we just did a webinar on this.

it was a imitation only, but it was on, for family business owners

and advisors and family space.

And it was just really around difficult.

People and family businesses and how, what do you, how do you manage that?

and so that was, we had a whole, very engaging conversation.

It was a lot of fun.

But, it's the stuff that it, a stuff that people like to

work around where I like to go.

cause I that I wanna drive, I really wanna drive change and I wanna help people heal

One thing that's interesting to me is I've dealt with from personal

standpoint business, but also a few clients that would be family and I think

something that I've observed, and I definitely don't have the reps that you

have in this world, is this word loyalty starts creeping in, in a weird way, in

that people believe that blood, blood thicker than water, whatever, all this,

whatever the saying is that there is this.

Loyalty that comes in because it's family.

But I've taken loyalty and flipped it around.

I'll just mention this and you could respond, yeah, that sounds

good, or no, here's my thoughts.

But I really see that loyalty is healthy.

When someone, going back to the spiritual, they've got a loyalty

to something bigger than them.

They've got a loyalty to the organization, they've got a loyalty to either

superiors or coworkers, whatever.

And then they've also have a loyalty to self, going back

to the, who am I question.

and I've seen with family business that, that loyalty, even like a husband,

wife, I've worked with a couple of husband wife teams that run companies.

it does get really odd.

I, we don't want anyone handling the money outside of air quotes

again, family or stuff like that.

So just when I mention the word loyalty related to this, what comes to mind?

Yeah, I think you're, I love where you went with that.

when that word comes up is it's just like you said, the

question you're automatically asking is, what are you loyal to?

What are you loyal to?

what's that mean?

and if you say, I'm loyal, we in the fam one of the things that we'll do in

the family business space, the folks that do the type of work that I do, and

I guess that everyone does, the type of work I do in family business is I'm

looking for the narrative in the family.

When I'm starting to work with a family, I wanna understand what are the beliefs that

family holds so that the, there could be a narrative around loyalty in the family.

Oh, you'll hear it in the express in the language and uncle and my

dad did this and, and whatever.

And family first and I always make notes of these things cause part of where I, I.

At times I might challenge some of these narratives.

If those narratives are no longer serving us, they might have served us up till now.

But if a family really truly wants to transform build long-term continuity

and heal past trauma and adapt for the future, there is an opportunity also at

the same time to possibly establish and even quite frankly, to When I was doing

core value works for so long, and then now recently in the last couple years, I

started doing defining emerging values, now working with NexGens in the room.

what are values we might want to consider for the future?

And that's, it's a very fun, dynamic conversation, Tim, because it.

It's oh, I don't, maybe wellbeing.

it's one that sometimes comes out.

I'm like, that's exciting.

that wasn't exist.

That wellbeing was never a core value to this company for the less 125 years.

In fact, I have a business 125 years, and we have a, we, one of the new

emerging core values that we defined in the last 90 days is wellbeing.

That's one of 'em, which I think is really cool.

Innovation's another one.

And, it's like that's in their industry.

it's, people are thinking the same way for the last 300 years.

So it's, that's exciting too.

So these are possibilities, but yes, loyalty is a can, be dangerous.

but it's really these narratives and beliefs about, how we behave and what

we're trying to hold in integrity.

That, quite frankly, is creating our madness and we don't even

realize it at the same time,

Yeah, and I'll ask this and you could go in whatever direction.

One of the things, when someone is looking at what you do, there's this

aspect of a unique methodology that you use, and you gave us a couple

of the questions that you'll ask.

If not, Blatantly ask.

It's what you're asking in your head, who am I and why am I here?

But I guess I want to ask this in the form of a tip or teaching or something that you

might could do over the next few minutes, what can you share about your methodology

or your process, or what you do that might be helpful for someone sitting here

going, man, what's something tangible I could take away from this conversation?

Yeah.

if someone's out, there's listening, they're probably a

highly driven person, is my guess.

They're someone we put into an achiever.

Someone who's, likes to prep hops are competitive and.

Perhaps they might be overscheduled, they might be listening to us on a

treadmill or on a run or whatever, right?

It's if they're doing something else, they're mowing the

lawn or whatever it might be.

Because they like to, not because they can't hire someone

to do it, but they enjoy.

Maybe it's, perhaps it's a, I like to cook, so I guess we all have outlets like

to fish, things we like to do, right?

the first order of business, I think for most folks is to create space.

It's to create space.

And I just started working with a restaurant here,

working 80, 90 hours a week.

I get pretty good sized company and I'm okay, we, here's the

first thing we're gonna do.

We're gonna create space and we're gonna do this busy season.

oh, no.

Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna find time to do nothing.

I've, and I've given this exercise to people, you're gonna sit.

And do nothing for 10 minutes and you wouldn't believe the resistance.

I may be with Tim that I get, what, 10 minutes?

Yeah.

What am I gonna do?

Yeah, exactly.

I tell people that every month, one of the, one of the things that speak

in the space, I have a, an executive assistant and or first order of business

every month before she books and this onsites are logged out over time.

So those are typically out there.

First thing that happens is vacations.

Like we just book a vacation for Thanksgiving for 2024.

Okay.

Boom.

Block and 20 it's, that's out there.

But it's out there.

credit space for that time, quality time with family.

then the next order of business is, client onsite or speaking

things like that, right?

Then next order of business, and invented family, whatever that might be.

Then the next order of business is, okay, Willa coming into,

let's say it's June 10th, around June 10th, we're gonna into July.

looking at July.

What's Chris's calendar look like?

First thing I must to do, I'm gonna book a float.

He's gonna go sit, lay an salt tank for an hour, right?

With darkness.

And if you've ever done that in temporary deprivation,

Yeah.

would be afraid of that.

Speaking of space and time, right?

So blocking an hour for that, an hour for massage.

getting me on the a on the acupuncture table, with the same acupuncture

we've been working with for 20 years.

what else goes in there?

One chiropractor visit.

those four and four things, and then tennis blocks every week.

Those things karate's already in there.

They're already in the calendar, right?

And the day can't start.

I can't do anything.

there's always an hour for business development from

nine to 10, 90% of the time.

these things are already blocked out.

So the space is created intentionally for certain things and for myself.

And what happens for folks is they're so overscheduled.

It's we gotta, sometimes we gotta step back and say, what if?

I've had clients I've worked with that's What if we stop working on Fridays?

What?

Yeah.

What if we did?

I don't know.

You can't do that.

You can't stop working on a Friday or a Friday and a Monday.

I had a client that we did Friday and Monday, and he still grew

his business 25% with no, no.

an implication.

So I'm like, but we don't start there.

Let's just start with 10 minutes.

Can we just sit for 10 minutes?

And then also, I introduce them to some form meditation and or breath work

or pr My wife's trained in pr Yama.

she's a very, seasoned, practitioner.

And yoga I practice as well, but I'm nowhere near trained as her, but I've been

leveraged her and help with the clients.

let's establish some type of space.

if we believe that there's something that's here beyond ourselves,

are we even freaking listening?

are we even listening?

Oh, we're so damn busy and someone's knocking on the door all the time.

How are we gonna co-create?

So just and know, and then if they're really resistant, if you're

out there like really resistant, then let's look at it this way.

probably believe in remote working now.

You believe in exercise, you believe in some type of cardio, and you believe

in some type of strength training.

Most people won't push back on that.

it's necessary.

It's proven, it's scientific.

Okay.

Where do you go to, the gym that you go to for your mind?

Where's the mind gym?

Who teaches you how to run your brain to think your thoughts?

And usually you get a blank stare because that's not,

There isn't one.

there isn't the way our culture has

been built.

I'll okay with you.

Let's do that.

We'll do that.

That's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna bring you in the Mind gym, and I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give

you a training exercise and then that's a place I can get someone to start.

quick question for you.

It may not be a quick answer, but a quick question.

Have, has Chris always been that way or did you grow into it?

Or was there a catalytic event or some life-changing event?

we like to talk about redefining success here and.

Usually I've observed that something happens that forces

people to make a change.

It's not always the case, but typically when did, when and why

did Chris make this adjustment?

Yeah.

I think it's a, it's probably ongoing, incremental, I found

growing up, it's a whole other story.

I'll go over my story very quickly, but I grew up in a dual alcoholic home

only I have the only child situation.

I had parents that, were alcoholics.

One also had some, addictions to, pain medication.

and then I would say I was mentally abused for a period of time.

Then I was bullied, and then also I was, assaulted by a male babysitter.

So he had that all into the continuum.

I had a lot of, a lot coming at me.

I, I found conversations with God on my, not the book per se, but like the

idea of that young, at a young age.

I grew up in the ca in the Catholicism.

So I, at least I had an understanding of what I, what, and I had to

pursue what that meant for myself.

But so that's where that real is.

But then also I would go to the library and I'd find books like what

to say when you talk to yourself.

I, Chad Helmstetter and I was like 13 years old and I'm like studying

these things and I'm like, oh.

And the more I started realizing about myself, the more my

life, the easier it became.

And so I just became a personal development junkie.

and I studied and read and studied and read.

And then later on got into audios.

And then karate, back in like 1986, I started practicing.

And then that experience created a new reality where I actually was getting

good at something and it started.

I didn't know this at the time, but I started doubting my doubts about

myself because I programmed myself that I wasn't good at shit and that

I, really sucked at everything.

But I'm like, wait a minute.

I'm really good at this though.

But that kind of, so I'm actually in my black belt in college.

It was a huge transformation because I'm like, wait a minute, I'm wearing this.

I feel like an imposter for a period of time, but I still had to

put it on and show up in a class.

And then when I became a sensei and then I had, 30, 40 students, it was, and they're

listening to me and they're adults.

it's created a different experience that started of driving this level of

transformation of what was possible.

And then I hired some amazing coaches, the last 20 something

years, that have helped me.

Cause I can't read that.

I can't read the label on my own bottle.

I think that's valuable.

And it really goes back to, and I'll ask it this way, it sounds as

if what you did was, is you've gone through this process, this journey

that we all do, which is answering the questions you brought up earlier.

Who am I and why am I here?

Is that correct?

and I think that's a journey.

I don't think it's a destination.

we're still doing that.

You're still doing it too.

Correct.

yeah.

I mean I have clarity today on that answer, but I'm open to if I got Phil

called to do something differently, I knew it was hard to leave at 3M when I did.

it was at a pension 401k, good six figure income, working part-time.

It, literally, it was, I left on my own accord and because I couldn't fully

embrace my purpose being there, like it just wasn't gonna work anymore.

I just had to I gotta go all in.

And you've, I'm sure you've read the work where the, the hospice

worker that interviewed all these people in their deathbeds.

and she, and the number one was I wish I'd, it was along the lines of, I wish I'd

done what I wanted to do, or where I felt called to go instead of listening to other

people or being concerned how other people would think about me doing what I wanted.

Something along that line.

I'm like, I don't, I never want to be that person.

I think the cool thing about that, that I'm picking up on, I'm a guy

that's sitting here in an RV and my wife and I have been traveling for 10 years

living in an ar, living in an RV for the last four, and you're, up in New

Hampshire and you've left corporate and, successful coaching, writing, et cetera.

I, I, I think the, the lesson that someone should take is find why you are here.

Who you are and why you're here, because, my guess is it was part of your journey,

but when you were at 3m, you began feeling an extreme tug that's not why you're here.

Yeah, no, I knew I wasn't, but I did a lot of transformation there.

It helped.

Yeah.

that I, I helped a lot of people moot leave and

I helped people who stayed.

and I helped them figure that out too, which was really cool.

I've always been doing it and tell, finally, coach pointed out to me, you

do this, you're doing this anyway.

I'm like, oh, I'm not a coach a consultant.

You're already doing it.

I'm like, what?

yeah, look at your life.

And I, that was, man, that was about 25 years ago.

I remember that conversation.

it was a while ago.

or 53.

but, I was like, I didn't realize it.

I just had no clue.

This person had to point that out to me.

I'm like, I am doing this, huh?

And I'm like, I never can make the money I wanna make doing this.

Until I started making meeting people that are like, okay, I guess I.

There isn't, if you're good and really good at what you're doing, and

someone explained it, really, it was, there's a really interesting way is

people have a pain spending money.

Human beings do.

there's a level of pain associated with spending money at time.

Maybe even for myself, oh man, you gotta get a new car.

I don't really, even though I, the idea's, cool, I don't wanna spend a, whatever

it is, and to a threshold for anybody.

then there's also the pain that we're experiencing our lives.

And if you can really get, understand that, if the, if you can take this pain

over here that you're experiencing is ways more than what you have to separate

to invest and make it go away, you'll invest, it's my experience of working

people, you spend the money, you'll invest the money because, whatever that is.

Whether it's transitioning your business, if it's a conflict, if it's a li I had

two clients that both passed away from cancer this year, one in January, and

went in March, both in their fifties.

Both wanted to work with me till the end.

And because they could have conversations with me, they

couldn't have with anyone else.

They couldn't have it with their, they wanted to be able to have that deep

connection and really lay it on the table.

Cause they felt like they, they needed to be something else or for

someone else, for their family.

yeah, I, you're right.

I didn't, and I didn't realize that I could do it.

Do both, right?

I can live the life I want, the lifestyle I want.

What's the whole other question and a whole other episode, is,

what does quality life mean?

And that's a great question, right?

You said,

you,

we, you, I'd love your work and I'd love to have you on my show, by the way.

but you know how we redefine.

What success is like.

That's a whole other part of the work I do.

When you do, because you know what's quality of life?

What do you mean?

and it's different for everyone, so there's no judgment around it.

for me it's being able to bring my daughter to school every week

on Fri and on the morning and Fridays, almost all Fridays I'm off.

So I'm not working tomorrow playing tennis with my wife for tomorrow at 10:00 AM

Like that's, like those choices, right?

But not, and being able to travel when I want, where I want to and how I want to.

So do

you, think.

for you too, to live anywhere you want and whenever

you wanna live there, right?

Like how cool is that?

I think it's

Yeah, I love the tennis thing.

I'll be playing some pickleball in the morning.

I've moved to the pickleball court, which tennis players are going, ah,

darn, those darn pickle ballers.

But, so I'll be doing some swimming and pickleball tomorrow, but I, one question

related to that little bit loaded because of what both you and I do, but what are

the odds or is it possible for people to reach these places without coach,

mentor someone to help them along?

can they do it on their own?

I don't think I could have.

It sounds like you may not have thought you could have.

What are your thoughts on that?

And this is not a commercial for coaching, but it's about to be.

no, I think, I think it's really hard to get to where you want to

go without a mentor a coach or an advisor.

I don't use any term.

You want someone that has That, and the person needs to understand a few things

and people can study books and that's great, but there's a few things that need

to happen in order for this to occur.

This is a really good question.

One is you have to have a level of self-awareness and

our level of, you talked about time alone and all that stuff.

Part of the reason I teach people that I'm enhancing their self-awareness.

I can't, cannot help you beyond your own ability to be self-aware there's a

correlation to your ability to understand behavior and modify behavior, but if you

can't even freaking witness it, we're gonna have a really fricking hard time.

Okay.

So that's one piece.

So you have to have that ingredient and working with a coach, mentor someone that

they can help you see what you can't see.

And I truly believe it is very if not impossible.

To drive transformation without someone to point out your blind

spots cuz you can't see 'em.

So you, you have to have someone do that somewhere, whatever

you want to call that person.

Also, you need to help to have someone help you develop self-awareness.

And those two things, I think are key elements.

And then also you someone that is trained not to project,

which is a whole other thing.

And I work with elite coaches.

I'm on an, I'm on the affiliated with another organization with eye level

expert folks who's very vetted out.

I'm not gonna talk about it right now today cause I'm not here for it.

But, but the point is that when they, these people get together

in space, you have to be approved to get into that container.

So for them, because they don't want anyone in there that's got,

that's gonna project their shit on anyone else, you have to be

conscious enough not to do that.

And some co, I hate to say it, but most coaches Good enough

to do that on their own.

Because what ends up happening, you and I have a conversation, and then all of

a sudden I'm pushing what I'm, what I mean by projection is as I'm somehow

putting my model of the world onto you, is not fair and not right, but you have

to be highly conscious not to do that.

And it's not a judgment thing, it's just a, it's just a developmental thing.

All right.

You with me on that?

I know you get

Totally.

Totally on.

Yeah.

and so that's the other key ingredient.

And when you're working with a family member or a friend, they're probably, if

I'm telling you, most coaches can't do it.

And they're trained.

I have a hard time thinking that family cuz they're like, oh,

we, here's what you should do.

Oops.

Run, fricking run.

No one should tell, I don't like the word should, but helping someone

navigate a path, I look at my, my, my license plate says Sherpa on it.

I look at myself and as I'm a life journey Sherpa.

that's a real, that's another answer to your question from earlier.

it's helping someone navigate Through going back to what we said earlier,

their truth, their core values.

Not mine.

Not mine, their theirs for what's best for their life.

Cuz it's a different for every one of us.

I think that one thing, there's a statement that I have, someone

asked me what my favorite quote is very often, and one of my favorite

quotes, and I don't know who this is attributed to, I can claim it is.

Shall not fool thyself.

and to me, I think it's really easy for if we're isolated, especially

looking back over the last few years and we're just to ourselves or just

hanging around with, our people around us, it's really easy to fool ourselves.

I think it's really easy to be deceived and fool ourselves in this world.

And, so I agree with you and I think the value of having someone

who is really, why they're here on this earth is to coach people.

I think a lot of people hang the title coach with themselves just for the

dollar bills because it can be lucrative.

But I think people of the really wired to do it have the ability to reach

inside people and pull out the greatness that's there, what, whatever it is,

it's not my greatness, it's not yours.

It's that person's greatness.

And I think that is, I think that's really cool.

I've got about 20 questions and about.

Four minutes that I want to get 'em in.

But there's one that I want to ask.

I have a highlight that I have in your book, soul Intention, and

it relates to that time and space that you talked about earlier.

The truth is, this is just in my Kindle.

It was on page 34, and it's under, are You Resourceful?

But I wanna talk about time as we wrap up and get to the end here.

The truth is, this is a statement you make in the book.

The truth is that time does not exist.

Time is a human concept.

We use it to measure and plan and I think at the root of a lot of what we're talking

about is our perception or idolization.

we idolize time, our calendars, our schedules, what's on our

watches, our, all of those things.

So talk a little bit about that as we wrap up in whatever you wanna say

about the book, because we're not gonna be able to dive deep into it.

But that was a cool nugget that I got from the book.

yeah.

Thanks.

mo times a construct all exists is the current moment.

everyone's heard that, but I think, I don't think we, all of our emotions,

I talk about this a little bit in the book, I believe is, are contextualized.

I want to have anxiety.

I have to go to the future and think about what can go wrong.

I can't experience anxiety in the present moment.

I've only anchored in the present moment.

The past is not a star house for pain.

The past is a place to hold memories and learnings, right?

Key memories, things, these amazing experiences We've had future to

place a plan to dream division.

And quite frankly, I believe that, it'd be helpful if we all spent

more time in the present moment.

Cuz that's where our love is.

It's where our connection is, it's where, that's where our, meaning is.

and it's, yeah, sure.

We wanna plan and we wanna be intentional about where we

spend our time, effort, energy.

And it's nothing wrong with investing time to be spontaneous or creating

space to do the, all of these things.

But how intentional we are is really important.

I think the reason it's important for me, and this

is where people need to identify, Their tendencies, their habits.

I think, like you said, a lot of people have a tendency to live in the past.

Worry about what they did or mistakes or whatever.

Many people, and I think business people, I think this is what we do is we live in

the future, future money, future business.

We worry about things that may or may not ever happen.

and, I'm with you.

I know for me personally, I.

I have to work more on being present.

I've got my three-year-old granddaughter that's here with us for a week or two

and oth outside of doing a few things like this, I need to be present with

her because three years old is a very short, fleeting time in someone's life.

And so I think that's really, really powerful.

And I do recommend the book.

I read through the book.

I've got a lot of highlights.

We weren't able to talk about it a great deal.

But, Chris, let's do this in our last minute or two where all you've

got podcasts, you've got book, you've got, your work you do where

all can people connect with you.

We'll include it in the notes, but just tell people where they could

go to find you and get connected.

Get all your stuff.

the easiest is go to Chris Yonker, ChrisYonker.com.

and there's also a private coaching page.

If you wanna learn more about private coaching, then there's,

you can get ahold of us there.

yeah, that'd be easiest.

And then the podcast Secret Thoughts of CEOs, Secret Thoughts of CEOs, that, they

can also, they please, tune in there.

And, we're all over the map on content there.

so I bring people in that I'm excited to talk to that resonate with my

core values, and what I believe is what my client's core values are too.

Yeah, I listened to an episode this morning and I want

to tell the listener that if you're listening here, then you'll want to

jump over and subscribe or follow or whatever you need to do on your

platform because that podcast lines up very well with what we're doing here.

It gets you thinking, presses the envelope on success and things like that.

good match there.

Chris.

We are Seek Go Create those three words.

I'm gonna give you one of those words over the other two that just resonates with

you right now and why is my last question.

Yeah.

I'm just gonna go with, seek is the word.

oftentimes some, one of the ways I'll sign off on emails is seek piece.

That's a sign off in essence.

As I mentioned earlier, we're all looking for a higher level peace in

our lives, whatever that means to us.

Inner peace, right?

Interconnection, inner joy and fulfillment.

These things are all fine in the, quite frankly, in

where.

Very cool.

I agree with that.

There's a reason that word is.

First in the list.

So thank you, Chris, for being on the show.

Thank you for listening in.

If you've listened in, I always like to request, share this episode with someone.

I believe we had a pretty deep conversation for the 55, 60 minutes

that we were here, and I think you know someone that needs to listen in on that.

So take a screenshot or share it on whatever platform you own.

Also, get a copy of the book, Soul Intention.

I read it.

Great book.

It will push some buttons for you.

It'll get you thinking, which I think is valuable, and then jump over and follow

and subscribe, Chris, on his podcast.

Thanks for listening in.

Make sure you're following us here.

We have new episodes every Monday.

Until next time, continue being all that you were created to be.