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Thank you everyone for joining us today.

Today we are very excited about our episode.

We have Steve Warner of Hour of Champions.

He is a former bond trader and entrepreneur turned mental

wellness expert and coach.

And today we're going to talk about how entrepreneurs navigate

the noise to exceed goals.

So it's lovely to have you, Steve.

Thank you for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so excited and honored.

I'm thrilled to talk about this concept of life and business filled with noise.

How did you ever start using that word noise to describe kind of what's going on

in our minds and in the world around us?

I was hoping you might ask me something about that.

as, as the introduction alluded to, I'm a former bond trader.

I spent, my career in the trading market and subsequent to that, I started Like

studying them, I've always been a student of the market and a student of life, and

I found out that they run very similar.

The markets go up and down based on a variety of factors that happen

up to the 2nd, up to the minute.

And so do life along the journey of the ups and downs.

It's.

The markets and life are both designed to shake you out, honestly,

to see how much you can take sometimes as the market goes down.

It's always shaking out the players, the weak players that don't have the

conviction to stay in and life works the same way when things get tough.

We get shaken out of relationships.

We, we give up a lot.

And what I noticed was that the really, really great traders in the arena that I

was able to compartmentalize and stay in the game often understood how to navigate

the gyrations that those ups and downs.

Of the market, and we often referred to that movement.

It's just noise.

they were inevitable circumstances that made the market go up and down

all day long and the real skilled traders were able to just navigate

their way through and understand that was really just part of the journey.

There's really good things that happen and really crummy things that happen

up to the minute up to the 2nd, over the course of a week, a month, a year.

And if you ever looked.

Back at your life and kind of examined it.

You'd see that there's been a lot of ups and downs and the stoics

and the people that really get how to navigate this journey.

Understand.

It's just noise.

Maybe you have this great conversation and then you have

someone who decides that they're not going to come to work with you.

And then you have some good emails that went out that could open rates.

And then all of a sudden something else happens.

I feel like your whole day kind of has those little ups and downs, right?

That was so perfectly stated.

And yes, it could be the first half hour of the day.

It could be the first 10 minutes of the day.

Okay.

You can wake up and get a call from your assistant says that that person

you've been trying to schedule has finally agreed and you get euphoric and

you're celebrating in your own mind.

And then you get a call back.

Oh, sorry.

Wrong podcast.

They call the wrong person.

And now you're like down in the doldrums and you just went from here to here.

And one of my great coaches, and I've had many along the way for myself personally,

said to me that, a great coach has to help people define reality and understand that

it moves up and down like this and living moment to moment will create insanity.

And it's one of those things where we have to remind ourselves, like,

who's to say what's good or bad.

And there's a story around that.

Like, you know, we always, you know, something happens and we realize

it's, we think it's really bad, but we sometimes don't realize it's

sometimes a gift and opportunity.

And all of the things that happened to us, not that we always see it in that

moment when we're stressed out, suffering in some way, how do you feel like

business owners can better navigate that?

So they don't, there are going to be ups and downs, highs and lows in our day,

in our week, in our month, in our year.

How do you coach people on to kind of quiet that noise and stay in the

game, like those awesome traders did?

One of the, one of the things I do is I offer them the suggestion, is it

better to be the victim or the hero of your story and in those downturns,

when, when everything is sinking.

We have this ability to turn ourselves into victims.

And it's a really safe place to be because when we get there, we

don't expect much from ourselves.

Things are going pretty crummy.

Other victims find their way into our world.

Inevitably, you'll get a phone call from somebody who just wants to make

sure things aren't going too good for you because misery loves company.

And then conversely, the challenge that I put people up to is to find the hero

that's hiding in that victim story.

Somewhere within that story is somebody that really wants to come out and shine.

And when you frame the story on the hero side versus the victim side,

all of a sudden, miraculously, Heroes start appearing into your

world, and opportunities arise that you never even dreamt of.

The whole dynamic changes, and it never not works.

In every victim story, there is a hero hiding somewhere, and the secret is

to be able to identify that person and come to grips with the truth.

That there's good in every piece of bad, you know?

Trying to just compartmentalize that noise and understand

it's just part of the journey.

And it is interesting, when bad things happen, you know, it's

easier if we all rise up together in that situation and try to make it.

Try to, you know, help each other out.

And so I do think sometimes when there's tough circumstances, we do see a lot

of people, you know, rise to that hero status and just be that person who's, you

know, sweeping off the road, the road.

Right?

Wonderfully said.

And that is, that's, that's an amazing example.

And when you see it on tv, it really, it, it fills your soul if you allow it to.

That's when the real heroes come out.

It's tough to be heroic when things.

are tough.

That's when the real heroes come out and shine.

So how do you help your clients get from that?

Not so great place back out.

You know, I think I have a multi step formula, but step one is called

define reality because there's nobody better at fooling us than us.

I always ask, you know, if I do a lot of coaching very, very early in

the morning, I like to put people in a very uncomfortable spot.

So, if they tell me they love to be coached in the evenings, I tell them,

I'll see him Thursday morning at 415 a.

m.

and they'll say, no, you didn't hear me.

I said, I'd like to be coached in the evenings.

And I heard you loud and clear.

I'll see you at 415 a.

m.

Let's let's agree that this is not the hour of convenience.

This is the hour of champions.

Right?

So we've got to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

I'll say, is that true?

Are you telling yourself that?

Because.

You think you're supposed to be tired, and then they scratch their

head and they go, Wow, I don't know.

I thought I was tired.

Now I'm not actually sure if I am or not.

And what that does is it creates an alternative path.

You're welcome to go back on the tired path because you already

know what that feels like.

Now there might be a, I'm not tired path and that might be filled with a

lot of beautiful things down the road.

So that's the first thing I do is establish the alternative path.

Now it's like, sorry to tell you, you've got an opportunity to change.

Then We really get deep into their story.

We rewind and we start.

We look for evidence of the fact, you know, when they tell me they're

not capable of doing things, we rewind into their story and we find

multiple circumstances when they pull themselves out of the doldrums.

We use the stories.

We try not to repeat the negative circumstances and find the things

that worked, document them, try to repeat them over and over and over.

And that helps us really.

That's about it.

Six, seven months ago, I was sitting with my son in his office, and he had a

childhood friend come in who grew up in the same town as us here in Northbrook,

Illinois, which is just north of downtown Chicago, actually moved out

to Denver for school, and then wound up in the investment banking business.

I think he got making wealthy people wealthier and wound up

taking the entrepreneurial route and getting into the e commerce scene.

clothing business.

And I was, he said to me, he had heard bits and pieces about my

story and my struggle that helped me create the hour of champions.

And that was really revolved around getting up super early in the morning

and having a physical, mental and spiritual workout all within an hour.

And he looked at me and he said, wow, that was like some really gritty wellness.

I said, Charlie, would you mind if I trademarked that?

Like I've never been able to encapsulate in two words.

What our of champions means to me and yeah, it's gritty wellness and

he said really I said 100 percent So went out trademarked the name I

decided to start a online clothing brand because I wanted people to be

able to wear this as a badge of honor To say this is the way I live my life.

I work out.

I'm spiritual.

I'm cognizant of mindset and I incorporate all this stuff and it really

helps give me a great start to my day.

So hopefully this will be a worldwide name someday.

I'm trying to be an influencer at 65 years old.

You're influencing people we know all the time because we've been in

the same circles and we know you have great impact and you're helping people.

I'm glad you got to hear that today.

me last time we thank you.

It is so cool.

How do you need to talk about this?

Sometimes when it comes to like getting your message out there, sometimes,

you know, I'm on a podcast interview and a host will ask me something and

then I answered it and just flies out of my mouth because maybe they

asked me a question on a different.

I'm like, why have I never said that that way?

You know, like I said in a podcast interview, we're not an outsourcing

agency and we're not a marketing.

We coach our clients and we train their virtual assistants and that's what

the most succinct we've ever said.

It is that right?

Two hours and hours of trying to get a message to come out

is just, you know, randomly.

It happens, you know, when you're not expecting it.

So I think that's so awesome that your son's front end helped you with that.

Yeah, I was 10 twisted for 10 years.

I would tell the different different side of it all the time.

I never have like a concise just like.

Yeah.

How like, it's just gritty wellness.

One of the other things, Steve, I know that you teach is we can't

change our stories, but we can change how we tell them and that really

feeds into not being the victim.

Right?

Is that how you really encourage that?

We all have stories.

A lot of things that have happened in our lives that weren't great or we

made bad decisions or whatever that is.

So you talk to people about you can't change the story.

But you can change how you tell that story.

That is correct.

Again, that was laying in bed one night just, thinking about the, a story

of my youth where my family kind of broke up, my parents got divorced and

my sister and I were forced to move out of this big, beautiful home, you

know, with the best of everything.

And the next thing you know, we're at a tiny little apartment with our

immigrant grandparents and I'm laying in bed going, what just happened?

And I was admittedly, I was a young, young kid.

I was very angry, resentful, scared, bitter, embarrassed.

And, I told this story forever.

I didn't know where to catch the school bus.

I didn't know how to get to and from after school sports.

I was towards everybody.

And then, and, and, and in effect, the way I live my life, I mean, I, I

still run into people from high school that say to me, are you still angry?

And that's only because they, if there's been 40 year periods

where they haven't seen me.

But truth be told, a few decades later, how lucky I was to have immigrant

grandparents that in their retirement years came back and moved into the

town where we live to be able to take care of my sister and I so we

wouldn't have to change schools.

We learned the value of money.

We learned how to speak a Second language.

Our grandparents were immigrants.

They spoke Yiddish, which is a, like a Hebrew German slang.

And, and we helped them out and we grocery shopped and we figured

out how to get to and from school.

And we just grew up a lot quicker than other people.

And the story was exactly the same.

The way I spun it the first way was the victim and I lived it for a long time.

And when I spun it the other way and I found the hero, that young hero in the

story, it changed everything for me.

And I'm so blessed to have had that experience.

It was.

It was one of the highlights of my life, it turns out.

And you're probably older because you had that, then you had that perspective

of the gratitude and the appreciation for what your grandparents did.

Like nobody, nobody has kids that think, oh my gosh, I hope I get to

raise my grandchildren when I'm retired.

Right.

I hope I get to relocate to a whole new town in retirement to take

care of little Cleve stepped up.

And I'm sure that, that gratitude and appreciation as you became an adult.

For what they did made a big difference to and how you view the story.

Yeah, the funny thing is, I don't even know if they knew

how to tell a victim story.

They came from Eastern Europe at a very, very, they never had any.

So for them, this was easy.

This was way easier than trying to get from, you know, from Poland

during World War 1 to the U.

S.

with no money.

This was a breeze for them.

They're like, okay.

You think this is hard?

This is, this is life.

We love this.

And when I thought about that, the unconditional love that, that they

showered my sister and I with my grandmother staying up late at night,

making sure that I got home safely.

You know, I walk in the door and just like an old Eastern European lady, not a

word, just to lock the door and go to bed.

Cause she knew I was home safe.

I took me decades to understand what that meant and how grateful I really was.

For for that.

Yeah, that's great.

I remember my grandma came over as well from Sweden and, and went

through Ellis Island, her name and my grandfather's names are on the wall there.

And, you know, she was like, your grandma was, you know, she was just.

Grateful for everything that she had.

She had no anger, no, you know, I deserve more, or I was treated on none of that.

She just got what she needed to get done and, and lived as best she

could and, and was grateful for it.

It's amazing.

I've been able to rewind my story deep and, you know, sometimes my

biggest hangup for the day is like, what golf course I'm gonna play.

And for my grandparents it was like, do we eat this hole?

Loaf of bread today, or do we try to save it for three days,

you know, and that, whoa, that is, that's life and that's noise.

and my noise is pretty calm compared to, to that, you know,

that, that really gets me into reality that things are pretty good.

I know sometimes feel, people feel, because it's really hard if

someone's having a hard time, you don't wanna dismiss their feelings.

If they're suffering, they're having a hard time, they've got a lot of anxiety.

You know, we all know that, like, you know, compared to what other

people have and the right no right.

To feel maybe the way we do, but we do.

Right.

So how do you, how do you work with people who, you know, I'm kind of

thinking of a friend that we have that's going through a difficult time

and just has this kind of anxiety.

How do you really, she logically knows, right, that she has everything to be

grateful for, and she's definitely not your, she's not a victim personality,

but I think she's just so exhausted and run down and just overwhelmed.

What would your advice be to someone like that?

Because you're just saying, well, be grateful for what you have.

You can come across as very insensitive.

Or rewrite your story.

Sometimes you can't rewrite it when you're in the middle of it.

So what would your advice be to someone like that?

Yeah, another great question.

And, like, anxiety is really fashionable right now, right?

Like, everybody's got anxiety and we're all racing.

Therapy and medications, and what I found is a lot of the times the

problem doesn't exist up here.

It exists down here.

Our souls are empty and I came up with a cliche a few years ago that you can't cure

a soul problem with a pill and I think you and I might have talked about this

in our initial conversation, but I asked.

And if we didn't, I'll ask again, when we were young, we used to pull into

a gas station and the attendant would ask our parents a few questions because

there was no self serve at the time.

Number 1, what kind of gasoline would you want?

Number 2, more often than not, can I check your oil?

And I think that if we actually took that fictitious dipstick down into our

soul and checked, we would probably see we're a little short on gratitude.

And I think we need to do things to fill up our soul.

So what I tell people to do, or I ask them if they're willing to do is maybe

go into their closet and find a jacket or a sweater or some clothes or something

that they can part with and go find a homeless shelter and go drop it off.

and drive away.

And I have to tell you that when you do that, the feeling in your soul of knowing

that you just gave something to somebody that you'll never know, but you did it

is so healing and it works all the time.

There's always somebody that's got a tougher than us.

And you had to say to somebody, you've got a great, you should be grateful.

That doesn't solve any problems, but to maybe challenge them to go spend some

time with themselves and go do something for somebody that they'll never know.

That is a real Rewarding way to get to turn that noise down a little bit.

And for me, like, I, I don't want to sound like, but I do it frequently

where I'll just ask my kids, or I'll send a text to friends.

Please let me know if you have some old winter coats or sweaters, and I

have a favorite charity here in the town that I grew up in, and I would

drive there and walk up the driveway and drop the clothes off in a bin.

And if I'm having a bummer day, I walk away and I go, I feel so good.

And I think the universe.

For the fact that I will never know who gets those.

That's the beauty of it that I'll never know, but somebody will and

that makes a difference in the world.

Amazing.

See, this has been incredible.

Oh, my gosh.

I just always love our conversations.

And I'm so grateful that you were able to be here with us today

because I think it's going to help.

A lot of people.

Well, thank you.

It takes great questions to make a great interview.

So thank you very much for asking great questions.

Thank you.

Steve.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

And if anybody listening wants to reach out to you, what is the

best way for them to find you an easy way is through my website.

Our of champions dot com.

It's ourofchampions.

com.

not just to be clear, just simply our of champions.

H.

O.

U.

R.

you can scroll down.

You can book a call and I'm bold enough on when I'm chatting with

anybody to say that my phone number is

8473128777.

And if you're real about change, I want to hear from you send me a text.

I'd love to I'll text you back by the end of business today, because

I really only want to communicate with people that that want to get.

Serious, honestly, and I thank you so much for asking me that and for letting

me share on this platform as well.

Absolutely.

Yeah, we'll put we'll put all your information in the show notes so that

people can reach out to you, but Steve so much for being here and encouraging us

and and being someone who is encouraging and and helping others stay out of that.

Victor mode.

So thank you.

You're welcome.

Thanks for listening to the six figure business mastery podcast.

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