Chris Widener (Author, Speaker)

Episode #51: Chris Widener is world renowned speaker and author of many books including "The 12 Pillars of Success" which he co-wrote with his mentor (and Tony Robbin's mentor) Jim Rohn.  

0:00:00 - Intro
0:01:45 - Welcome Chris & Seattle Connection
0:02:25 - Early Childhood Background 
0:05:20 - Aunt, Uncle & Mom
0:08:32 - Drugs 
0:11:30 - Trouble At School 
0:12:35 - Working for the Sonics
0:15:00 - Changing Your Path in Life 
0:17:45 - Becoming a Youth Minister 
0:20:05 - Speaking Career & Writing Articles 
0:22:45 - Jim Rohn & "12 Pillars of Success" 
0:23:45 - TV Show With Zig Ziglar 
0:24:40 - Professional Speaking Career 
0:27:40 - Speaking at Microsoft & Harvard 
0:29:55 - "Angel Inside" book & Finding Passion 
0:33:55 - Seinfeld Joke & Fear of Speaking
0:35:30 - Powerpoint, Notes and Knowing Your Material 
0:37:00 - Honing Your Craft 
0:39:25 - Defining Success, Character & Skill 
0:42:40 - Character & Honesty
0:46:05 - Associations with People 
0:51:40 - Politics, Different Views & Friendships 
0:56:10 - Running For Office 
0:58:45 - When Is It Time To Give Up
1:00:20 - Inspirational Stories 
1:04:00 - Other Motivational Speakers & Authors
1:05:20 - Charity and Helping Others
1:08:30 - Wrap Up 

Chris Widener Website:
https://chriswidener.com/

Heifer International:
https://www.heifer.org/

Chuck Shute Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/chuck_shute/

Transcript

Chuck Shute : 0:16

Welcome to the shark shoe podcast. And thank you for taking the time to listen. My guest today is world renowned speaker, Chris Weidner. So Chris had an interesting background. It wasn't easy for him growing up, but he persevered and got his college degree and began speaking, eventually rising up the ranks and becoming one of the best speakers in the business. Plus he wrote books he had a TV show, and some other businesses. And when you think of motivational speakers, most people think of Tony Robbins. Well, Tony's mentor was Jim Rohn. And Chris not only worked with Jim Rohn, Jim Rohn, was Chris's mentor as well. They actually wrote a book a couple books together, I believe. One was the 12 pillars of success, which is a New York Times bestseller. He also Chris also had a deep Be show with Zig Ziglar, who is also a very big name and motivational success business. It was really fun chatting with Chris very educational listen to the advice he gives, because obviously he's a very successful person. And he studied this stuff. And he's been mentored by some of the best in the business. I apologize for the audio on this one. We did a zoom call. I've never done that before. So I recorded it through zoom. So the audio is not great. I've never tried that before it is. It will have video that will be posted up on my YouTube channel eventually. But the audio is a little not the greatest, but it's still decipherable. You should be able to understand it and hear it so it's not the worst either. So hopefully enjoy it. Thank you. So welcome to my show here. So it's cool because you grew up in Seattle, same as me. Sorry, a Seahawks fan than

Chris Widener : 1:52

I am. Yeah. Seahawks fan. Do you prefer Charles or Chuck? Chuck? Okay. That's what I thought it says Joseph. I thought it was I am a Seahawks fan. I'm more of a mariners fan. My best friend is the president of Seattle Mariners and wow. Yeah, he, he This is his fifth or six years of presence he spent 18 is the CFO and, and I met him. We were both young guys in our early 30s. In Seattle, we both lived in issaquah. And his wife was in some Bible study with my wife, and somehow we met. So that's very cool. Yeah, so let's tie is that if that's okay with you, and I can get kind of your whole story. This is what I do. I don't know if you listen to my podcast, but I get people's kind of background, their life story, because your story is actually really interesting, besides just growing up in Seattle, and so far where I'm from So, I mean, you had kind of a rough childhood. So you know, your dad died when you were four. You probably don't remember that. And then your mom worked and I actually gone from school. I was in kindergarten, preschool. I remember coming home. I remember walking into a big like, it wasn't our living room. It was like a den and there was like eight or nine of my family members there and my uncle john Was there and I walked up to him and I said, You know what, what's going on? He said, Your dad died today. I've never forget, I still can remember where I was standing everything when my uncle john told me that my dad had died that day.

Chuck Shute : 3:10

Wow. That's that's obviously very traumatic thing to happen. And then, on top of that your mom was in real estate. So you guys would buy these houses and then sell and fix them up, then sell them. So you move like 20 you move 28 times, right? You moved 11 that you went to 11 different schools. So you obviously moved a lot. And I used to work in the school. So I know how hard that can be. The change can be on kids. So but you tell me your experience with that. What was it like having to move schools and move houses so much?

Chris Widener : 3:39

Um, actually, you know, one of the big things that I teach people is everything is based on your perspective, in any situation can have multiple perspectives, right? So in my circumstance, using this particular one, you can say, Oh, that's really too bad. That's terrible. But I look at it as I have learned that I can go into any situation, anywhere. Not knowing anybody and make new friends. That's what moving so many times taught me how to do. That's what being thrown into a new school every year, year and a half, two years taught me. And so I suppose that it was probably tumultuous. But that's not what I remember from it. What I really remember from it is, I still have friends from the third grade that I'm still friends with on Facebook, even though I only went to school with them for a year and a half of my name mark and a guy named Bobby. And the three of us. We were We were inseparable in the third grade. And then halfway through the fourth grade, I moved. I'm still friends with those two guys to this now.

Chuck Shute : 4:33

So it was a way it was a strength for you because you learned how to adapt.

Chris Widener : 4:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's true in any one of our circumstances. You know, I talked about the mother of drunk drivers, the lady that started mother getting against drunk drivers. I can't think of a more horrific thing to happen than to have to bury one of your children. And I'm sure she still hurts to this day. But you know what she did? She said, somebody needs to step up and make sure this doesn't happen again, and she redirected all of that negative hurtful energy into something really positive. And that is really truly one of my core beliefs is, is there are multiple perspectives to any situation. And successful people choose the most positive or optimistic perspective in order to drive themselves through it, rather than being buckled up underneath of it.

Chuck Shute : 5:21

Yeah, but so besides moving, I mean, you really did face a lot of adversity to overcome because besides just the moving you actually had to go live with your aunt and uncle for like a for about 18 months because you were such a cool kid and they see your mom put, you know, dropped you author your ankles, and I mean, that must have been traumatic as Oh, that's another thing where you're just like, wait, so my dad died. We've moved a bunch now I'm living with an uncle. So what was what was that like going through that experience?

Chris Widener : 5:48

Well, my memory showing my uncle Paul were rough characters. And, you know, one of the real downsides to my upbringing was my mom had, I'm convinced now posthumously after She's passed away. I, I'm convinced she had what was called borderline personality disorder. My mom was both the best and the worst thing that ever happened to me on one hand, she would tell me what a horrible rotten piece of whatever I was. On the other hand, she told me you can do anything you want in life. And I can remember her walking into a bookstore and saying, if all these people wrote books, you could write books, too. I was 12. And I've written I've got my 22nd book coming out this November, right? So

Unknown Speaker : 6:27

yeah, that's awesome. But

Chris Widener : 6:28

living with Michel Michel Paul. They continued on with my mother's tradition of beating me and so much so. I lived with them half of fourth grade, all of fifth grade, went back to live with my mom. And then like in the sixth grade, my aunt Rochelle, my uncle paul got divorced. My show was my sister's husband. I probably my sister, my mother's sister. Her husband was not a blood relative of mine. They got divorced. And I did not see my uncle Paul again for 30 something years. I got a phone call from one of his daughters, my cousin one day saying my dad dad's gonna die in the next couple days. He's in the hospital here in Seattle. Would you come and see him he'd like to see you. So I went down there I had been 40, something like that. And he was nothing like I saw on the last time I'd seen him. He was a big burly beard, you know, log truck driver, he worked in the woods and drove trucks. He was a he was a bad boy. I mean, he was a good boy and he was a rough and tumble guy. Well, now he was bald, he had no teeth. He was you know, he went from weighing 250 pounds to, to probably 170 pounds and he was dying of cancer. And he profusely apologized to me for the ways that he had beaten me and the physical abuse and, and as I walked out of the hospital that day, I remember thinking to myself that one for him than it was for me, because I had already kind of come to grips with and moved on realize, you know, people pass, people pass on what they had done to them for the most part unless they make a choice. So you know, like, for example, when I got married and we had our children, we had a rule Nothing but the hand, nothing but the butt. Because when I was growing up, you know, it was anything long and flexible anywhere in your body, they could hit you with it. So, you know, I still, you know, as my kids were growing up, I believed discipline and such I didn't let them run roughshod. But never anything but a hand and a squat on the but nothing else. Because I wanted to change. My mom had been beaten by her dad, and I'm sure he was beaten by his dad. And so you know, we have to we have to self aware enough to then say, How can I change this?

Chuck Shute : 8:30

Yeah, no, that is amazing. I didn't know this about you. So another thing that you know, was hard for you to overcome at a young age, you started getting into drugs and alcohol, which is obviously very common for a lot of people, especially with a rough background like that. A lot of pain in your life. So you were smoking opium, which which sounds I don't know a lot about that. If that's doesn't sound good. That sounds like it could have been kind of dangerous. So I'm talking about your experience with that and how you got mixed up with all that stuff.

Chris Widener : 9:00

In the sixth grade, I lived across the street from the junior high drug dealer whose older brother was the high school drug dealer. And we all sat at the bus stop together every day. And seventh grade I think I was stoned probably every single day of school probably had something to do with my 1.4 grade point average that year. And so it started by living literally across the street from these two brothers. One was in the seventh grade one was in the the fifth grade, I think, at the time. And that's how I got involved with drugs. And then it just sort of moved out from there. I didn't like drugs in that I never been the kind of guy who wants to be out of control. When I smoked opium in the eighth grade. I remember I was so high I walked down the middle of the street in Ballard, which is a suburb of Seattle. Yeah, about Market Street. I was down the street in the middle of Market Street, which is a main thoroughfare and I remember that night just going I don't ever want to feel that way again. So you know, it's not something that's that's really Good, and nothing I ever wanted to get wrapped up in. But I think I was really just lost. I mean, you know, I can't You can't explain everything. Like when I look back at it, I was pretty angry. But I don't think that I thought of myself as angry. I don't think I thought of myself as sad or, you know, any of those kinds of things. I think I was just a kid tried to make it. No information. Yeah, and really no mentors, and your taste. So you

Chuck Shute : 10:23

wanted to take risks because you figured why not? And these kids were doing drugs and they liked it. So just figured what the hell there wasn't really anybody telling you not to do that or any role models that were staring you in the right.

Chris Widener : 10:36

In fact, I came home. This was my mother's for you. My mother was a very laissez faire 1970s bra burning liberal. You know, do whatever you want to do. I came home that night, after being so high the first time ever smoked opium walking down the middle of the street, and I came home and my mom said How was your day? And I said, well really wasn't very good. She said, why not? I said, Well, I smoked opium. Today, and and now most parents would go ballistic. Yeah, my brother told me did you like my mother said, Did you like it? And I said no. And she said, Well don't ever do it again then. That was my mother's response to her to her 1314 year old boy and he smoked a joint soaked in opium that day.

Chuck Shute : 11:20

Wow, that is crazy. So, I mean, but you weren't, you weren't getting trouble in you weren't getting in trouble at school. So you had school because for a lot of kids, again, I worked in the school. So I know. You know, when kids are going through these tough times, at home, they actually take solace in school because that's the one place it's like, things are consistent. There's discipline you, you gotta tell me about this. This has got to be a record because again, I worked in school, so I know how like kids get referrals. And in 10th grade you got 47 written referrals to the principal's office. How did they not suspend you and dado your kick you out?

Chris Widener : 11:54

I dated the principal's daughter, so I knew him pretty well.

Unknown Speaker : 11:58

And wow

Chris Widener : 12:00

And so on the last day of school he called me in. And I held up a stack of papers. And he said, Do you know what these are? And I said, No. And he said, these are your written referrals to my office this year. And I said, How many are there? And he said, 47 we need to not have this happen.

Unknown Speaker : 12:19

Yeah, but so they they had

Unknown Speaker : 12:21

patience with you, and they told

Unknown Speaker : 12:25

me it was one of the priorities.

Chuck Shute : 12:28

Hmm. But despite all this, despite the troubles, the drugs now call the trouble at school, and all this stuff, you somehow you got a job working for the Sonics as a ball. Boy, that sounds like every kid's

Unknown Speaker : 12:40

dream at 11 years old. How did you catch up, I was popular.

Chris Widener : 12:46

So the guy that on the Sonics of time was getting Sam Schulman because Sam was in the movie business as well. And my dad was the fifth partner at MBB and J, which is one of the world's largest architecture firms. They did the Seattle Center. Not the Seattle Center. They did the Seattle science fair. And all those white curvy kind of

Unknown Speaker : 13:05

Yeah.

Chris Widener : 13:06

They actually, they actually just did either Google or Facebook's billion dollar campus. I can't remember which one it was, but they did one of those two major campuses. And so my dad hung around with kind of a lofty group of people. We lived in Sandpoint Country Club, I'm sure you know where that's at. Up there in North Seattle, widely considered at the time the second most prestigious Country Club behind Broadmoor in Seattle, where all the old money live. This was kind of the new money. And so he was friends with Sam Sherman's business partner. My dad dies at four. We were selling season ticket holders. My dad coming from Seattle. You'll love this and the basketball fans will think this is my dad was one of the first season holders of the Sonics 1967. We had four front row seat. We had four front row seats, our feet were literally on the court, and we sat there. Wow. And he bought them the first year $2 a ticket. It costs us $8 a game to sit well, that's the court. Ah, my mom, those seats and so I grew up going to these games like everybody saw I sat on the court because my mom, she sold the other two ads sister and her son. And, and so I was a big fan. Everybody saw me and then when I turned 11 I was in the sixth grade beginning of the sixth grade. My mom reached out to this friend of my dad's he reached out to the owner Sam Schulman and Sam Schulman said, sure we'll give him a job. And so I think he called Frank Furtado, the trainer and said you have a new ball boy, he'll be there tonight. So that's how I got my job with the Sonics.

Unknown Speaker : 14:36

And so you're able to hold on work there. Yeah.

Chris Widener : 14:41

One of the few things that saved Yeah, working for the Sonics and then I was always played football, baseball, basketball, started all my all my teams, I was good. Those two things probably saved my life. Okay, gave me something to live for.

Chuck Shute : 14:55

So be despite the drugs and all the trouble you're able to keep on this job with the Sonics. You're able to play sports and you're able to graduate high school and it was about age 17. When you kind of like, I don't know, you got to tell him about this moment because I don't think I hit this tall. I was in my maybe 30s or 40s, where you kind of had this realization like, Oh, I'm kind of going nowhere. I need to change my path in life. Most kids do not figure that out at 17 it takes and some people I know, in their 50s and 60s, haven't figured it out. So how did you figure that out at such a young age?

Chris Widener : 15:27

Yeah, so I was living in North Bend. You know, where North Bend is? Yeah, my brother was there and out. Base amounts I lived out there. I've spent the night with one of my my best friend, probably my best friend and and we were pot smoking buddies. And it was a Sunday morning and his mother threw open the door at about 8am and said get up. We're going to Sunday school. And I'm like, What in the world is Sunday school? I had no religious upbringing, nothing like zip zero, zilch, nada. And I'm like, I've tried everything. I'll try Sunday school. Besides, she's demanding we get up. So off we went, we went to a little church called Mount Sinai Lutheran at the corner of eighth and ogle in North Bend. And it was there that I met a youth minister, a good old boy from Montana, Helena, Montana. And he was just what I needed at that stage in my life, he was a good old boy. So he put his cowboy boots in my butt and told me you're wasting your life because you got a lot to offer. But then he also opened up this whole concept of God to me and there being something bigger than me and, and a bigger purpose than me and, you know, all these kinds of things. And it began to open up my eyes to maybe a divine purpose for my life. And so it was really kind of the the combination of a male role model. Yeah, my dad died. I didn't know either. my grandpa's my brother was 13 years older than me. He moved out when I was four married a girl who didn't like my mom, and so I didn't see him. Much growing up. We're close now. We're good. Now. Yeah. I called him up when I would read. I called him up to be my best man. And he literally laughed. And I said, Why are you laughing? And he goes, he goes, he goes, You're serious? And I said, Yeah, I'm serious. He goes, Oh, I thought you were joking. He said, I would love to be your best man. And I said, well, you're my brother. I wasn't close to him at all. I barely know him. But he was my brother. Right? So I asked him, my best man, and we're very close now. But growing up, I didn't have any male role models, anybody older. And that's what this youth minister was, for me a great role model for a man and how to be a young man and, and then just opening up the whole concept of God and the fact that this world is a lot bigger than just me.

Unknown Speaker : 17:39

Mm hmm.

Chuck Shute : 17:40

So Wow, that's huge. So then you kind of started getting on the right path. You did go to college, you got your degree in communications or something like that. And then did you do some other work before you started speaking in 1988? Did you do a little bit of work before that? Because how did you? You must have had a story to tell.

Unknown Speaker : 17:58

I was a youth minister. Okay. I was in northern New Jersey, and I don't

Unknown Speaker : 18:03

care.

Chris Widener : 18:04

I went to college for one year in, in Minnesota. I didn't transfer I transferred out there for a year moved back to Seattle. And during that year, I met a girl who was from that church in New Jersey. During our senior year, she went home for spring break. And the pastor used to be her youth pastor, and he had her over for dinner. And he said, we're looking for a youth minister, and she said, I know just the guy, and he called me up. It's the only interview for a job I've ever done in my entire life. And interview for

Unknown Speaker : 18:35

the Sonics job.

Chris Widener : 18:38

No, they just told me to show up and I showed up. I mean, as long as I could throw a towel with somebody three feet away, I was golden. Okay, so this is

Unknown Speaker : 18:46

your first time ever. Are you nervous first? No.

Chris Widener : 18:52

No, I guess not. I don't really remember that much. And, yeah, they invited me out there. It was really interesting little tiny church was about 80 people when I showed up, but they were some of the most successful business people in America, it was really kind of funny that the board made, the board was made up and I was on the board as sort of a youth representative. But board had the number two credential, the number six guy at Exxon, the former CEO of Sealand Corporation, there was a former quarterback from the NFL, I mean, just a really wildly successful well, and a number of them took me under their wing and sort of were great mentors to me business wise, spiritually, you know, just life. And one of my first business mentors and mentors was a guy who was the CEO of Mars candies. He wasn't at the time he was Senior Vice President of Mars candies, he ended up becoming the president ceo of Mars candies later on and 97 or something like that. 98 but it was really good for me. I moved back out to Seattle, but while I was being a youth minister, I was giving speeches because I was speaking at high school summer camps.

Unknown Speaker : 19:58

Okay,

Chris Widener : 19:59

talking about Overcoming, you know, bad, go bad upbringings and things like that.

Chuck Shute : 20:04

Yeah. So did you originally you just did it for free then

Chris Widener : 20:07

right? Okay. Yeah, yeah, free dollars here and there.

Chuck Shute : 20:13

Okay. So then eventually you started getting being able to charge about 500 bucks a speech, how long did it take you to get to that like $500 a speech because now you're basically a paid speaker.

Chris Widener : 20:24

Yeah, five years, probably four or five years and I started charging. And then every time I had a new book, or I had a new success or you know, something like that I raised my fees over the course of my career.

Chuck Shute : 20:37

Yeah. And so then you started a publishing company, American business network, which was later known as made for success. And you started you're also one of the first people that got onto the internet and that was kind of on the internet. There wasn't a lot of stuff out there. So you just decided you're gonna start writing these articles on success in business and this just give it away for free and you wrote over like 450 articles over the course. The time right?

Chris Widener : 21:01

Yeah. Because I mean, it seems now everything is ubiquitous, right? Everybody there's, you can find articles on anything in 1996 not so much. So, you know, people website, but they had no content. Why not? Well, I'm gonna start cranking out content. I have my own email list with 100,000 people on it. I sent out emails every week. I

Chuck Shute : 21:21

how did you get my own email list just over time?

Chris Widener : 21:24

Well, yeah, back then it was interesting. There were these email aggregators. So you would go to a site, and when you landed there, there would be a little pop up. And the pop up would say, if you like this site, you probably like these earrings. And then you could click on the ones you want it hit submit, and it subscribes all of them. And so I did that. I, I think they paid us two cents for every one we collected for them. And they paid five cents for every email they got for us for our subscription. So I was pumping out a lot of people to join other people's evenings, but so much That I barely ever paid anything for all the ones that they sent back my way. I mean, as long as you're sending them two and a half times as many as as they're providing for you, it's free. Right? Two and a half cents and two cents and five cents. So I built my list apparently that way.

Chuck Shute : 22:15

Okay, then so and you started doing speeches started you are you traveling with the speeches at this point and traveling across the country? Yeah. And then

Chris Widener : 22:24

how am I first? I got hired by Cisco Systems. And they took me to sun river, Oregon. Down in Bend is that we did that. speaking engagement. I think I got 3000 bucks for it. That was like my first big Wow. You know,

Chuck Shute : 22:43

yeah, that's big. So then how did you come across Jim Rohn. Cuz Jim Rohn is for people who don't know that is I mean, I'm sure most people know Tony Robbins is and Tony Robbins mentor was Jim Rohn. You actually wrote a book with him. 12 pillars of success.

Chris Widener : 22:58

Yeah. I spent the last I spent the last seven years of Jim's life I started out the reason they called me was I had been ghostwriting for a guy named john Maxwell. And I wrote his syndicated column. And then they called me up asked me if I'd go straight for Jim. And I said, No, I don't want to go through anymore, but I'll co write with him. And so they said, great. We wrote the Jim Rohn one year program, which is a one year Success Program based around 12 pillars of success. And then when we were done with that, I said, Well, why don't we write a book that'll kind of synopsize it and then drive people over to join the, the the full one year program. And that has become a big bestseller. We've sold over a million copies of that book. So

Chuck Shute : 23:38

Oh, wow, that's that's insane. And then you guys had to tell me about the TV show. There's a talent or web television series for on marketing and motivational content.

Chris Widener : 23:48

Well, there was a network called tspn, the success training network and Okay, they put a lot of money into it. It was a it was a real deal. I mean, it was a very wealthy guy out of Dallas, who had the money to really funded, right? And so they gave me a TV show called made for success, right? interviewed successful business people and authors and politicians and you know, all that kind of stuff. And then, and then they wanted Zig Ziglar to do a TV show called True performance. And Zig was getting older and age. And I was selling a lot of Zig Ziglar programs through Costco and Sam's Club through my publishing company. So I had a relationship with them. I send them a lot of money every quarter in royalties. And so I was down there, Dallas for my show. Anyway, so they said, you know, Chris, would you be interested in CO hosting Ziggs TV show? So I had my own called made for success. And then I co hosted Zig Ziglar TV show called True performance.

Chuck Shute : 24:36

Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. So I read an article about you and Forbes. I think it's how I came across you and you were saying that for people who want to be a speakers as a career 95% make less than $10,000 per speech, but that doesn't sound too bad to me. They said you said the sweet spots around $6,000. But you said by 2013 you were making $20,000 a speech that's like just insane to me. But it's competitive thing, right? I mean, there's a lot of people that are out there. You know, claiming to be speakers that may not have the experience that you have.

Chris Widener : 25:10

Yeah, if you get fired from your corporate job next step is speaker.

Unknown Speaker : 25:15

Really?

Chris Widener : 25:16

business coach, right? Yeah. In the National Speakers Association first started up in the 70s. I think there was 100 members. Now there's about 2500 members and probably another 15,000 former members. I know some speakers bureaus have 20,000 speakers in their database. And, and if you want to see how many there are, go to LinkedIn and type your city in and say, you know, Seattle motivational speaker or Phoenix motivational speaker, and you will find hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who call themselves speakers and most of them make no money at all. There are very few long term professional speakers. There's a way to do it in a way to build your business and a lot of people don't take it Like, they don't view it like a business. You know, if they were starting a Subway sandwich shop, they would do it like a business. When you're doing professional speaking a lot of people just go, well, it's a hobby and I'm really good at speaking and I like it and it pays well, but they don't they don't invest money in marketing or you know, their website or their materials or you know, any of that kind of stuff. They don't really take it serious business,

Chuck Shute : 26:21

right, because you kind of can't just be I mean, I guess you could just be a speaker, but usually, even Tony Robbins, all these guys. They have books, they have DVD material. They have podcasts on you and podcasts that you got to do like all these different things. One,

Chris Widener : 26:33

what's a successful one successful? I'll tell you what, it's called. When COVID hit. Yeah, I said 80% of all speakers will be gone at the end of this because they have no way to make money. All they're the only way they can make money. I know speakers that used to do pretty well. They're driving Uber now. You know, they used to do 30 speeches a year at 10 grand a pop. Well now you're not doing any speeches. Now you're making nothing because you don't have an audio program you don't have a membership program you don't have a video course you don't have any of that stuff. You were hoping that somebody would keep hiring you. And you know, I know guys that was doing an ad

Unknown Speaker : 27:19

Are you breaking up

Chris Widener : 27:20

grandpa? any income for the last 10 years? And so once guys like guys like Tony Robbins and those guys yeah myself, you know, we have programs and and yeah, we lost we lost the speaking income, but we didn't lose our income or royalty income or membership income, none of that. Wow.

Chuck Shute : 27:37

Yeah. So some of the companies you spoke for, like you said Cisco, Microsoft General Electric, at&t Harvard Business School. So out of those does do an even pay different like, does Microsoft pay the best because they get the Bill Gates money. So I'm thinking they would offer you the most money or you just have a flat fee and say this is what I charge.

Chris Widener : 27:58

It's basically here's a flat fee. Here's what I've charged you know, I, that's the thing about is there's no cost of goods, right? I mean if you if you're making jeans and it costs you $10 jeans and you sell them for 40 you can't really negotiate too much because you have heart you certainly can't sell it for nine because you lose $1 every time but in the speaking business, there's no cost of goods. It's a little bit people can name whatever price they want to name right? Yeah, they can do whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it live a little bit of wiggle room on my speaking fees depends on if it's a new client. It depends on if their spin off business depends on if they'll let me sell my products. There are a lot of different things that that go into that equation.

Chuck Shute : 28:40

Yeah, so and tell me about the Harvard Business School So was that intimidating all because I would think that they have a certain level like they would be maybe judgmental because it's Ivy League and you know, you didn't go to Ivy League so hot. Why are you going to tell us what, what to do and what success is we know more than you know, we're from Harvard, right? And that's got to be a little bit intimidating.

Unknown Speaker : 29:01

Well, they go to Harvard, they're not from Harvard yet

Chris Widener : 29:04

I went to Harvard. True, true. None of those kids that that's true. They typically go on to do great things. But I always I always quote Tony Robbins, Tony always says, I have my doctorate in results. Nice. So I have my doctorate in results. I've done a lot. I've been successful. And, and they brought me in to talk to the students about leadership. It was one of the student organizations brought me in to speak to their, to their organization. And, and actually, they I think they just paid my expenses. They didn't even pay me for that. But, you know, it's kind of like, you know, people say, Well, if the president offered you a job in his administration, would you do it? And everybody always says, when the President asks you to do a job, you do it, right. It's kind of like when Harvard Business School asked you to come and give us, give us we're here, because it's the most prestigious Business School in America. And at the very least, it's on your resume.

Chuck Shute : 29:55

Yeah, that's a good resume builder for sure. Another good resume builder you have you wrote a book called Angel inside which I found this really interesting. Are you talking about this? You talk about how Michelangelo's dad wanted him to be a politician, which is really interesting. And you talk about kind of so how do people find their passion? Like, what if they don't know? But what if they don't know what they want to do? I guess is my question with that one? Because Michelangelo, you probably knew that he wanted to do art even though his dad wanted him to do a politician stuff. What if you just have no idea what your talent is? How do you find that?

Chris Widener : 30:29

Well, I think you have a lot of questions you have to ask yourself, what would be what is your What is it you're, you're passionate about? I mean, if you're passionate about surfing, you could go start a surf shop or you could be a surf instructor. You could make surfboards or, you know, whatever, if you're, if you're interested in science. But you know, you got to think about what is the day to day look like is that a job that I'm going to be happy and fulfilled about sometimes the job that you're or the topic that you're passionate about is not something you'd want to do every single day. You know, if you're really, really passionate about I don't know that you would you have to ask yourself, do I want to sit in a laboratory every day for 40 years? And I asked that of a young student recently. And she said, No, I imagine going to the same little laboratory every writers. And so as we talked, I think that, you know, probably what she's going to go into is law. But she could do law like, Patent and Trademark, intellectual property, medical, medical stuff, you know, so there are ways to pursue your passion in a profession that pays you the kind of money that you want. I also worked down here with a group called jag jobs for Arizona I can't remember name but it's it's basically for underprivileged kids who want to go to college and we go down and we help them write their resumes and things like that. And the last time I was down there, they they asked the question, you know, what should I do for a living and what should I do this? Should I do that? And the first question I asked him is is how efficient Is money to you? Because if money is really important to you, that crosses out a lot of professions, Mm hmm. You know, I think it's one of the things that teachers, one of the things that teachers realize too far into their career. On one hand, I want to teach you, I want to go and I want to help kids, I want to teach math, I want to, you know, whatever, that's their passion. Now, they're five years into it, they're not making any money and they're never gonna make any money. You know, my brother was a fireman. And he knew there was a top on that, you know, he wasn't going to go and say I deserve 300,000 $300,000 a year, get a side gig, or go do something else. He always had a side gig. He was a professional golfer before he was a fireman. So he started a little Golf Club making company and he made money selling customized three hickory shaft. Old school. golf clubs, like they originally were with hickory shafts and he would make the golf club And that's how he did it his income and things like that. So his passion was golf, but his job was because he got into golf, the golf business, he was a golf pro in a few places he hated it loves golf, he hated the golf business. So he became a fireman and golf for fun.

Chuck Shute : 33:17

So finding out where to you know whether you want like you said, you want to do that passion in a job, because then that takes away the fun of it. When you're a golf pro. You're not actually just getting out there and golfing for fun. You're having to like teach people who suck at golf like me and

Chris Widener : 33:30

Yeah, well, essentially people who complain about the price of the shirt, right, stuff like that. I mean, think about it. If you're into math, let's say you're really into math. You can be a math teacher in junior high for $35,000 a year or you can study quantitative trading and go to Wall Street and make $3 million a year. It's both math. Both of them are math. Yeah,

Chuck Shute : 33:51

true. Definitely. Well, getting back to the the speaking that you do the speeches, so I don't know if you heard this story joke that Jerry Seinfeld Does about when he talks about giving speeches, the number one fear is speaking in front of people, the number two fear is dying. So he says his joke is like, if you're at a funeral, you're better off being in the casket than doing the eulogy. So how do people give get over the fear of speaking not necessarily, that everyone's going to be a professional speaker like yourself, but, you know, maybe they have to give a speech at a convention or an office meeting or something like that. What advice would you have for people who get nervous or afraid of speaking in front of groups?

Chris Widener : 34:29

I would tell them to remember that Seinfeld joke. Yeah. And here's why. Let's say you're director of HR at a large company, and they say, We need you to talk to our sales group for 20 minutes, and there's 1000 salespeople out there. Now, what most people are thinking is, oh my gosh, what if I suck What if I'm bad, what if I flub my words, they're gonna be, they're gonna think I'm horrible. I'm going to be embarrassed, I'm not gonna be able to show my face around, we're gonna learn well, and you just let your brain spin out of control. What you need to remind yourself is they're sitting in the audience, thinking blended Tim and me, they don't expect you to work. They expect you to suck. The HR director, you're not a professional speaker. Now if you pay me $30,000 to show up and I suck, yeah, they're gonna be outraged. Right? So so this is what I tell people, you don't need to worry about nobody sitting there judging you. They're sitting there thinking, I'm glad it's him and not me.

Chuck Shute : 35:24

low expectations. So that's good to remember. And you also say,

Unknown Speaker : 35:29

low expectation.

Chuck Shute : 35:30

Yeah, you recommend that people memorize their speeches? Because all the most famous speeches didn't have PowerPoint. So you're not a big fan of PowerPoint, then.

Chris Widener : 35:41

People can use PowerPoint if they want, but I always say Could you imagine Martin Luther King Jr. On the mall given? I Have a Dream speech with PowerPoint? I have a dream that little

Unknown Speaker : 35:52

boys walk down the street. And I'm going to show a picture of that right here on slide one. I mean, it's

Chris Widener : 35:58

history. We're done. PowerPoint. And yet I think a lot of us rely on on PowerPoint. I'm not opposed to PowerPoint though. And when I say about memorizing your, I don't say memorize your speech, I may have said, I don't mean that what I mean is know your stuff. I'll give you an example. I come up to me, I get a 30 minute speech one time, and I don't ever use notes. And guy comes up to me afterwards. I was in Seattle, actually, in issaquah. And he said, How in the world can you do 30 minutes with no notes? And I said, What do you do for a living? He said, I work at Boeing. I said, What do you do at Boeing? He said, I work on wind design. And I said, Oh, okay, cool. If I said to you right now, and I, if I hand you this microphone and say, give me 30 minutes on the design of a wing, and how lift works and how it helps the airplane get airborne. Could you do it? He said, Oh, yeah, easy. And I said, there you go. You know your stuff. If you know your stuff.

Chuck Shute : 36:55

Yeah, talk about it. Well, speaking of wings, you say that you don't think anybody in this Speaking world who's a professional speaker? Nobody? None of those people like winging it. Right? They've all they know you said that you know exactly how people will respond when you do something because you've done it so many times so you know exactly how this jokes gonna land and all this. Is there ever surprises though? Have you ever like told the joke good? Wow, that usually kills What's going on? This isn't the crowds different cuz I know what comedians, they talk about different crowds, you know, different jokes land differently. So

Chris Widener : 37:26

sometimes, sometimes that happens, but I get rid of the jokes that don't land every time. I remember. I don't remember what the joke was. But I remember about seven or eight years ago, I had a really funny line. I mean, I thought it was funny. I thought that's so funny. I did it five times. No one ever laughed. And I never did it again. To this day. I can't remember what it was what the joke was, but I'm constantly honing, right. I mean, yeah, if Jerry Seinfeld, all those ins, they go to these little tiny clubs and they practice. There'll be times when Kevin Hart, Seinfeld or Those guys they're literally in these little clubs with like, 40 people and their notes. Yeah, that's right. They're trying. They're trying it out. If if they do that five times and nobody laughs at a joke, it's not going into the Netflix. Right? Yeah, no, you're right. You're holding it. Yeah, yeah, you're honing it. And so I do I know. And you can watch a speech of mine that I gave probably 11 years apart. I think they're 11 years apart. You could pull both up on YouTube hit the play button, and they are 90% the same,

Unknown Speaker : 38:35

huh? Yeah. So

Chuck Shute : 38:37

you have kind of like a plug and play speech that you have four main points and you add stories and audience participation things that way. You can kind of drop things as needed. Like if they say you got 30 minutes you can drop this and adjust it. Is that pretty common for speakers? Is that the way that usually they do it? Um,

Chris Widener : 38:54

I don't know how other people do it. It's how I would recommend they do it. So when I coach people on on how to become a professional speaker I tell him to come up with an hour long speech. And it should include an intro, it should include a setup, it should include four points, and it should include an ending. And that should be about an hour. If somebody says I only need you for 45 minutes, you drop one of your points, okay? They say I need you hour and 20 minutes, you add a audience participation exercise or you know, something like that. So it really is plug and play to be able to make it longer or shorter. Very cool. Very cool. So,

Chuck Shute : 39:28

well, let's talk about the content in your speeches, the success principles. First of all, let's define success because you bring up a really good point about success. When people think about success. They think about money even when I die. I'll say the same thing. I'm like, I really want to be successful like oh, I don't care about money. Money's unimportant to me. I'm like, Why don't even I'm not talking about money. I'm talking about like, actually being good at your craft and doing because when when you say that you ask people who's you know, who's the most successful person you know, they say Bill Gates, or maybe it's Jeff Bezos Now, most successful woman is Oprah. And these are people that are, you know, building errors and whatnot. But you think success is more than just money, right?

Chris Widener : 40:04

Our definition or default definition, if I were, if I were to say to you, Hey, I got this friend, he's really successful, you would probably imagine a guy in a beautiful house driving a beautiful car with a big job with a big office. That's how we, by default, defines us. But if you back people up for a minute and say, Hey, okay, aside from money if a guy had $20 million in the bank, but he was going on his sixth marriage, considering basketball, and you know, maybe not, right. And so it's not just about money. Now, money is part of success and money can be a way of measuring success. But you can have a wildly successful schoolteacher who wins School Teacher of the Year in America, and they might not have two nickels to rub together. Are they unsuccessful? No, I don't think they're unsuccessful. I think they're successful at impacting lives and those kinds of things. So I tend not to I tend not to look at it in regard to money. I always say that true success is not the overachievement one area, but it's the balanced achievement in all areas. You know, we healthy, we want to have a solid emotional stability, we want to be growing intellectually. We want to, you know, be financially secure. And I think that's really success is to be able to say I've got a well rounded life.

Chuck Shute : 41:28

Yeah, you say character and skill are two of the most important things. When you look at success.

Unknown Speaker : 41:34

And everybody focuses on skill can I tend to focus on character?

Chris Widener : 41:40

Because skills you can learn? Yeah, character is you know, character you can learn characters Well, I mean, you can become convicted of something and say, I'm going to change this and, and not do this anymore. But But skill is the thing that we tend to focus on. When I asked my audiences I'll say how many of you have ever been to a skill training seminar, everybody raises their hands, everybody He has gone to a seminar to learn how to do accounting or be a better speaker or how to sell or, you know, all the skills, how to have a better marriage, you know, all the how tos. But then I say how many of you ever been to a character training seminar, virtually no one ever raises their hand. Because we tend to, we tend to not really focus on character, we tend to focus on skill. And what I believe is that long term success comes from a foundational character that allows you to be in the game for a long period of time.

Chuck Shute : 42:32

So how do you work on character besides a character building seminars or other things that you recommend people do?

Chris Widener : 42:39

Yeah, I mean, I think you have to really do some deep internal work. You have Jim Rohn. You know, they always call him America's foremost business philosopher, but you have to have a philosophy of life. You have to understand morality, you have to understand. You know what character really is. You have to understand why it's important to always tell the truth. You know, I Being a truth teller telling the truth is, is part of what I believe to be a great character. But there are a lot of people that have never really thought through. How not telling the truth can affect their life. So in my seminars and in my book, in my book, The Art of influence actually, there's a I write business fiction. They're their little stories that teach life lessons. Now in the book art of influence, it's a billionaire who takes this young, recent Business School graduate with him on a business trip to sort of teach him some lessons as a favor to his grandmother who he knew was his nanny when he was growing up. And so the first stop they go to is they go to a business that this billionaire is thinking about buying. And they come in, and the CFO comes in first, and he's sitting there and he says, the CEO be in here, be here any minute. And so they're waiting in the boardroom. And an admin walks in to the CFO, and he says so and so wants to know if you sent that packet Over, he goes, Oh, I forgot. Just tell him I nailed it yesterday and it must, or Tom I nailed a couple days ago must be lost in the mail. It'll be coming soon. And then the CEO walks in, they have their business meeting, they go out to the car. And the, the kid that he brought along with him, he assigned him during the meeting to look through the financials and the numbers, right? So they're having their meeting and the kids looking through the financials, they get out to the car. And the billionaire says, What do you think, should I buy it? And the guy goes, Yeah, I mean, the numbers look great. And I think it would be a really good thing to add to your portfolio. And the guy says, Oh, I would never buy that company. And he says, Why not? He says the CFO is a liar. sat there and watch why to a client of yours. How do we know those numbers are right? How do we know those numbers are true? We don't we've already we've already defined the fact that the CFO is willing to lie. Right now we have to ask the

Chuck Shute : 44:54

question if he's willing to lie to us. So even entertain even the little things matter on things like that, like If you have true character, even like little lies are important. Here's the one I always get.

Unknown Speaker : 45:05

So if your wife walks out and says, Does this dress make my butt look big?

Chris Widener : 45:11

What do you say? Yeah? Well, what you don't say is no, it's the cheesecake that makes you but that's never want to tap. Yeah. But here's what you say. You know what dress I think you look fabulous in I think you look fabulous in that red dress. Do you want to wear that tonight? Huh? You're telling the truth. But you're not, you know, because most people say, Well, I lie if it's gonna make people feel better. I just don't believe in that. Okay, if you have a relationship with somebody, they can be honest with you. You know, I'll say it to my wife every now and then. Does this shirt go with these bands? Like if we're going out with friends or not? Should I wear this with it? Yeah, she says, I wear the other one. I don't go on such a horrible shirt picker.

Unknown Speaker : 45:55

Yeah, I'm 50 years old. I can't pick

Unknown Speaker : 45:58

the right shirt. Put the other shirt. Oh, yeah, there you go. Yeah.

Chuck Shute : 46:03

So speaking of going out with friends and stuff I like to think you have on Association. So there's three different associations. Can you explain these you have expanded associations with people, limited associations and dis associations. I think this is like one of the most important principles that you've you talked about, it's one of the most important things I've ever heard.

Chris Widener : 46:22

Yeah, and Jim Rohn. And I did that together. I classify everybody into one of those three categories, expanded associations, limited associations, or dis associations. Expanded associations are people either at your level or above you who you're going to be able to have a mutually beneficial relationship you give to them they give to you, everybody, it's Win, win, mutually beneficial. You can learn from them grow from them, and you will invest in their life as well. mutually beneficial. You should expand those associations to whatever degree you can spend as much time with those people as you can. Then you have limited associate And limited associations are those associations with people who are not necessarily going to be really good for you. You're not going in the same direction. You don't have the same, you know, interests. Or they might even be a bad guy, I don't know. But you have to be in a relationship with them. It's your it's your uncle, who you know, you don't really like that much he always tease. So you limit your association to him to the family reunions, right. That's when you see your uncle. Other than that, you're not calling them up asking to go do things with him. It might be the person in the cubicle next to you, maybe they're negative, maybe they're, you know, they're just negative Nelly about everything. Well, you're not going to want to start going to lunch with that person, because you don't want to let their negativity creep into your life, right? So you have to sociation with them, but you limit it to the work that has to be done with them. And then dis associations or people that are not good for you. They're not going in the same domain necessarily mean that they're bad people. It just means they're going in a different direction. They're not somebody who's going to build you up. They're not somebody that It's gonna be wind beneath your wings or, you know, wind in your sails or anything like that. And, and so you need to disassociate with those people, not spend time with those folks. Now I'm not talking about I always get these Well, what about this? Well, I'm not talking about people who you can help, right? Mm hmm. Somebody, I talked about a colleague relationship in mutual relationship. If there's somebody who's having a real struggle in their life, yeah, you can, you can stoop down and help them, give them a hand help them, but you're not asking for them to invest in your life. I think most of us have what I call relationships of convenience. These are the people who you went to college with and they've always been your friend and so they're still your friend. And you say, well, are they good? Is your relationship good for you? Well, not really. I mean, he does this and he does that and no, not really well. Why are you friends with I've been friends with him forever. So that's why pendulum to them because them forever. It's kind of like Paris Hilton. They always used to say she's famous for being famous. Well, we're friends because we're friends. Right? Yeah. Friends, but is it good for you? Is it propelling you forward? And if it's not, you should disassociate. I don't mean call them up and say, you know what I've been given some thought you're really rotten human being and I want to see that. Yeah, suggesting me emphasizing your time spend with people who are going to be good for you. We've got limited time here. We don't have time to spend with everybody. So we need to focus down to the people who we're going to have good mutually beneficial relationships with.

Chuck Shute : 49:36

And I know people that have family member, I mean, not just like a cousin or an uncle, and you talk about that limited relationship, but I know people that you know, their mom or their dad is so toxic to them that they have cut off relationship with their mom or dad. I mean, do you think that is sometimes beneficial? I mean, if it gets to that point where you feel like you know what, I just can't have a relationship with you. Are you know you're my mom or my dad?

Chris Widener : 50:02

I think there are lots of people like that I have some friends that Tom, their dad was an alcoholic. And they went to him the son, my friend went to his dad and said, Dad, I love you. You are amazing in so many ways, but your alcoholism is destroying our family get togethers. And I am just telling you right now either quit drinking, or you will not see your grandchildren again. Because I'm not going to be doing this with you because it's too toxic for my children. And to his credit, he gave up alcohol, cold turkey, and they had another 10 great years together. doesn't always work out now. circling back to the fact that my mother used to beat the tar out of us. I have a sister I've not spoken to in probably seven years. I can remember the last phone call we had with her that I had with her. every phone call was about how horrible my mom was now, seven years ago. I was 47 My mom had been dead for years. And I told my sister I said, I do not want to continue having these conversation. She's dead. I know the troubles I had with her and that you had with her. But I've reconciled that I've moved beyond it, I found a healthy spot in my life. And I don't want to rehash it with you three days a week. If you can't stop talking about Mom, I can't continue to be in a relationship with you. And she's never called me since. And that's fine. I'm fine. Because, and I would love to have a relationship with her. I'd love to know, you know, we can talk about that we can both be thrilled by you know, and and oftentimes I see it now with politics. I have friends who I will say they're on the other side of me politically and I can't wait for these next three months to be over with. Although I'm concerned that once the election happens, doesn't matter who wins Henry's gonna want buildings down right now. But I have said to numerous friends of mine, I've said, I am begging you. Please stop talking to me about this. It is going to ruin our relationship. I understand your perspective. I disagree with you. I am I am fully in support of you having your own opinion. And I love that. That's great. I just disagree. We've talked about it. Anything beyond this is just going to make us mad at each other. Let's enjoy our friendship.

Unknown Speaker : 52:33

one another. This is genius. This is brilliant right here.

Unknown Speaker : 52:37

Talk it's novel. It's an awful pizza on that guy. I said to him, I said to him, I am begging you. I'm begging you what, please? Because I like you in so many ways. I like you.

Unknown Speaker : 52:52

Yes.

Chris Widener : 52:54

Let's focus on that part and he could not let up And we've I finally just deleted it. And I don't have any interactions with him anymore.

Chuck Shute : 53:05

So if you see that stuff on social media, because I'm sure you're on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, and there's a friend that you have that you just do hide them from your newsfeed, then so you don't see the political updates.

Chris Widener : 53:16

Well, so I it's interesting. I am, I am very political. I ran for the US Senate. I certainly have my opinions. Sure. And but when I, when I post my opinions, and most of my friends on Facebook are my opinion. Okay, so post them. I will say I'm really looking for people who have different opinions. And it happened today. It happened on my feed today and one woman who I really like she's great. I've done business with her. She disagrees with me. She jumped on. She was respectful to me. I was respectful to her, and we were able to converse about it. Now, there's some people who will do that. And you're this. This is the hidden gem of your podcast right here. I'm going to save so many people so much. Thanks. In an emotional distress, when you post something that you that you have a group of people that you know are just not going to like it, you can choose when you post you can choose send it to public, anybody can see it, friends, only your friends can see it. Or there's a, it says friends, except there we go, I have about 20 I have 20 people on that exception list. And they are the people that I know are just going to come unglued on my political posts. Okay. And you come unglued and start screaming at me and my friends and calling us names. You go on the Accept list, and then you don't have to see my you don't have to see my beliefs and I don't have to listen to your response to them. But I have lots of friends who disagree with me who are not on that list. Yeah. We have respectful but yeah, that's what I I

Chuck Shute : 54:51

don't mind listening to other people's opinions. I mean, that's why I have the podcast. I mean, I hear people from all different sorts of walks of life and it's to me it's fast. I like hearing different perspectives and different views. So that kind of helps me form my own. I mean, I have my own that I've brought up with and stuff. But, you know, it does make me think sometimes like, Oh, I never thought of it from your perspective, like, that is interesting, you know. So I think it's interesting to hear. And otherwise, why would we have these conversations? Because, you know,

Chris Widener : 55:18

yeah, here's what I do. You want you want to freak somebody out sometime? do this to them. When one of your friends who's diametrically opposed to you politically or religious or whatever, ask them this question. I, here's what I say to people, hey, let's do something fun. Let's take 10 minutes, the next 10 minutes, you argue my position, and I'll argue your position. Oh, that wouldn't be fun. And you know what, you know, most of them can't do it, because they've never considered another position. That's interesting. You could take the opposite political position of mine. And I could make the argument for it, because I understand it. I disagree with the conclusion, but I understand the process and I can and I can do that and Most people can't a lot of people on my side get a lot of people on the other side can't. But it just means that they've never done the work to try to truly understand where other people are coming from.

Chuck Shute : 56:09

Yeah, no, that's really interesting. Well, speaking of politics, I was gonna ask you, so you ran for the Senate before. Our governor and Arizona is interesting, because I'm kind of an independent. But, you know, our governor is he's kind of hated by left and I get I get updates from my left friends that don't like him, and I get updates from my right friends who don't like him. So have you thought of running for governor? I might be.

Unknown Speaker : 56:33

There might be an opening soon.

Chris Widener : 56:34

Oh, no, no, no, no, I'd rather I'd rather be a pontificate, er and write books about it. I gotta tell you running. Running. Politics is brutal. It's brutal. There was an old book written back when President was the president, and it was called a Bloodsport. And let me tell you, it's Bloodsport these folks will find anything and everything and and they will take the good things and turn them bad and they'll take the bad things and make you look like you The second coming of the devil. And so that's why a lot of good people don't go into politics. Sure. You probably remember, probably remember the the, the former CEO of T Mobile, john Stanton, you probably remember that name from your Seattle days he started voicestream. Western wireless, sold him to Team became a CEO and now he's the primary owner, the Seattle Mariners. And john is a center right person. He's smack dab in the middle. He's a little bit right, but not much at all. He's pretty, pretty middle of the road. He's got an incredible business career. He's got enough money that he doesn't ask, have to ask anybody for the money to run for office. I have begged him to run for office. I've said I even gave him the American needs you speech. He said never gonna do it. many ways. I don't blame him. Yeah. I mean, he is nice. He's kind he's he's middle of the road. He's working wildly successful business guy. He's been married to the same woman for umpteen 40 years. He's got great kids. Nothing wrong with this guy. But I'll tell you what, if he threw his hat in the ring, they would find all sorts of wrong things. I'm sure I'm sure yeah, that's

Chuck Shute : 58:13

interesting. And it's kind of like what you were saying earlier about, you know, being a teacher or being in a lab all day is like you might have an interest in this but it's a really something you want to spend your whole day with because that's like you said, it's a rough job for sure. But um, so if people you know, if you're if you're Chuck,

Chris Widener : 58:30

if you're a billionaire, and your option is to go the weekend in, in DC with Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell or sit on your hundred million dollars, outside of con free, what are you going to choose?

Chuck Shute : 58:43

Outside choose the out? Yeah, for sure, for sure. But you do say that people should achieve their, their biggest dreams. I love this philosophy too. I have the same philosophy. And I think that you probably have the same philosophy as me in terms of just, you know, trying to achieve big things and fail And that's okay. And then learning from the failures and trying to take steps up. But how do you know when it's time to give up on something like At what point if somebody wants to really want it, whether it's run for office or be a teacher or be an actor or comedian or whatever? How do they know when it's time? Maybe it's time to give up on that dream and do something else?

Chris Widener : 59:21

Well, I think the easiest answer is if it becomes intolerable or toxic to yourself. But usually when I get asked this question, I refer them to Seth Golden's book called the dip. I think it was called the dip. Okay. And, and it's all about how do you how do you come to that conclusion? Because you're right. everybody's like, just never ever, ever, ever, ever never ever quit. They always quote Winston Churchill. Never, never, never, never, never, never quit. bad advice, because there are some times you should quit. Yeah, Brett Farve should have quit. Instead, he just went on and on and on and on. And I'm like, please just go get some counseling. But that book does a pretty good job on how to come to the, you know, answer that question. Should I quit?

Chuck Shute : 1:00:07

Yeah. Because it seems like it does take time to grow something to do something. You got it. You have to give it I mean, it's got for a lot of times it is years, maybe years to reach a level of success that you want to achieve. But, you know, at some point, someone's doing it 510 years, and you haven't achieved success. Maybe it's well, I

Chris Widener : 1:00:25

was. I was talking yesterday to somebody they can't remember who maybe one of my daughters, I was telling her about William Wilberforce. Do you know the name William Wilberforce? No. It was that William Wilberforce was, he was in the, whatever they call them House of Lords or whatever in in England. He was part of the legislature, okay. 21 years in a row 21 years in a row he brought before that legislative body, a bill or whatever they call him in the UK to abolish slavery. 21 years in a row. He tried to abolish Slavery on the 22nd year, it passed. Wow. So it took it 22 years. I look at a guy like Mark Victor Hansen, my friend Mark Victor Hansen co wrote a book with a guy named jack Canfield. They wrote a book, small little book called Chicken Soup for the Soul. Yeah, they were passed on. They were passed on by over 100 publishers. They finally got a little tiny health publishing company. I don't even it's like United Health books or something on some little rinky dink publisher that books about health and they've got chicken soup. people drink chicken soup, and they're sick. Yeah, we'll do it. That series has now sold just under 600 million copies. Ah,

Chuck Shute : 1:01:46

yeah, that's a big that's a great story. They also reminds me that if you're the Colonel Sanders story, you know that one bad guy was like What was he like in his 70s or something? parts of it. He was driving around some when he started 67 sorry, yeah. And he knocked on all these doors trying to sell his recipe. I can't remember what the number was, but it was like, it was like 10,000 people rejected him. I don't know how true it is. But I mean, it was clearly a lot of people had said no until finally somebody said, Okay, sure. So I mean, if you have the tenacity of a 67 year old man, so I think that's pretty inspiring.

Chris Widener : 1:02:21

Well, I have a friend of mine. I have a friend of mine in Seattle. He graduated in the same class as john mccain. He's very old, from the Naval Academy, and he used to run a company called Data IO. And Dana IO was the biggest tech company in Seattle. This guy was king of tech and Seattle. And in the late 70s, early 80s, he and his CFO went to a restaurant in Bellevue to meet with a couple guys who were looking for an investment in their company. They went in, they sat there, I think they ate at 12 baskets in Bellevue, and right down by the Bellevue mall, and this these two Two young guys offered him 10% of their company for a million dollars. And he looked at these guys and he said, Well, you know, we'll talk about it. We'll get back to you. They walked out to the parking lot they got in the car. He said, No sooner did both of our doors shut. We turned and looked at each other and we laughed our asses off. That was the funniest thing ever. These two long haired hippies wanted a million dollars for 10% of their income. They're valuing this company at $10 million. It's outrageous. Wow. They had just had lunch with Paul Allen 10% of Microsoft. But you know what he said? He said, I would make the same decision today, because nobody knew that it was going to become Microsoft. But what if they quit? What if they said the smartest guy in technology and Seattle just said we were fools. Yeah, we should just quit. He would have never become the richest man in the world. Now the second richest man in the world.

Chuck Shute : 1:03:58

That is crazy. What other motivational speakers do you fall now? Like, are you familiar with Rob dial? The mindset mentor? That's one of my favorite podcasts. Oh, that's a good one. Are there other people that you're following right now?

Unknown Speaker : 1:04:12

Yeah, true. You know, I love

Chris Widener : 1:04:16

you know, David Goggins. I just read his book. Great. I have a lot of friends. You know, like, my friends are people that I read. I'm actually I'm actually rereading this book right now. Self matters by Phil McGraw. Phil McGraw fan, but that's one of the personal that's one of the best personal development books ever written. It's really book self now. Yeah, but I got some great friends. Waldo Waldman's, a good buddy of mine. He's one of the top speakers in America today. Jason Hewlett. Phil Jones from the UK as a sales trainer. There's a lot of guys old standards like Mark Mark Sanborn is a good buddy of mine. There's a lot of great speakers out there today.

Unknown Speaker : 1:04:55

Well, that's great. Well,

Chris Widener : 1:04:56

I met I did a men's mastermind years ago. We went through Lewis Howes book masks of masculinity. And it was a really good book about being a man and the masks that we wear. So I try to read a wide variety of different kinds of people and I'm not I don't fall like I listen to everything they do or Yeah, I kind of read everything they wrote.

Chuck Shute : 1:05:17

Um, so I always end with a cherry I came here if I told you that I to use our charity or nonprofit that you are passionate about promoting or that you spent give your time to.

Chris Widener : 1:05:31

Yeah, I mean, anything that a lot of my stuff is is through you know, church or whatever. I do a lot for missions and I just started working you know, you're down here in the in the Phoenix area, there's an area called sunny slope. In Wenatchee sunny slope is a really nice neighborhood. When it widens. It's really not so nice neighborhood. And right before COVID hit, we started working with a group down there we go down on Sunday mornings, we feed First, we do a little church service for them. You know, we give them basic hygiene things and packages and so. So we help out there anything really to do with kids. I've just started helping a group that's doing dog rescue stuff. So it really just trying to give back in a wide variety of areas. But I always tell people just find out something you're passionate about, you know, something that something that makes you cry. That's a good, that's a good thing, like, I know. And I realized this years and years ago, there's a lot of people that are in hardships and it just I know that it's hard, but it doesn't like move me. But when I see little kids in other countries that they've got that distended stomach because they can't even get a bowl of rice for the day. Those are the things that always you know, sort of turn my heart a little bit. Yeah, in fact, when my kids were growing up, they were always like, Dad, there's nothing we can buy you that that you wouldn't already. Buy yourself. If you wanted it, you'd already have it because you've got the money to buy it. So for years and years, my kids got a, a magazine or a What do you call it? Like a little pamphlet or brochure or whatever? All right? Yeah, from one of two groups, either Heifer International Red Heifer International, or compassion International. And I would tell them, buy me a gift by spending however much money you want on one of these things that helps people in third world. So great eat group worldvision compassionate National Red Heifer International is a non religious one. The first two are sort of religious oriented, red Heifer International, is a non religious one. Okay. But the ones that were vision that those guys do, they felt like they require religion in order to be held by a goat for people, you can buy beehives for people. You can buy animals that will produce either meat or milk or honey or any kinds of things. And so for years and years, my kids would buy a goat for some poor person in a third world and give it to me as a gift.

Unknown Speaker : 1:08:09

That is awesome. And

Chris Widener : 1:08:11

yeah, I mean, I don't need another watch. I don't need a couple cigars. I don't need a bottle of liquor. I post things myself. But if you want to spend your $50 and buy some woman in a village somewhere, a couple of beehives that she can start producing and selling honey. That's fantastic.

Chuck Shute : 1:08:29

That's amazing. That's great. Well, you've done so many amazing things. People need to go to your website. That's where everything is right and then we're all your links are for Facebook and social media and your YouTube channel, your YouTube channel. I've watched some of your videos are great, they're fabulous. They can hire you if they have the money, right?

Chris Widener : 1:08:46

Yeah, I do. I do personal coaching. I do Skype coaching for somebody to come

Chuck Shute : 1:08:51

pick up the third company, right? I mean, they don't come cheap.

Chris Widener : 1:08:57

Well, you know what, during the COVID with the With the virtual ones, I'm pretty really really flexible in my virtual ones because you're in my office like, she's gone. I can go do something else. I don't have to get an airplane. So yeah, I'm more than happy to do virtual kinds of stuff. Yeah.

Chuck Shute : 1:09:13

So you're doing virtual speeches and getting paid for that. Visa. Ah, that's very cool. Yeah, cuz I'm guessing the world needs some motivation right now because people are, they're stressed out. They're given up in their anger. Like you said, the election coming up too. And, yeah.

Chris Widener : 1:09:32

You know, my number one speech right now I'm giving is thriving and tough and challenging times. You know, how do you how do you not just survive, but how do you thrive?

Chuck Shute : 1:09:39

That's great. That's now have to listen to more of that. So well, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I really appreciate it. Everybody needs to follow Chris on social media. You're on Facebook. Are you on Twitter too? And I say on Instagram.

Unknown Speaker : 1:09:52

Twitter at Chris Weiner, Facebook and Instagram are at Chris whitener speaker and then Chris wagner.com.

Chuck Shute : 1:09:58

Okay, thank you so much, Chris.

Unknown Speaker : 1:10:02

Your thing? Okay, me. Okay. Bye bye.

Unknown Speaker : 1:10:05

All right, that worked for you. What's up? That worked for you?

Unknown Speaker : 1:10:09

Yeah, that was great. That worked for you. Yes.

Chris Widener : 1:10:12

Yeah. And then you'll wrap up, you'll produce a beginning and an ending. Yeah, I do an intro and outro. Yeah, clap it together.

Unknown Speaker : 1:10:18

Yep. Great. Thank you so much. Okay.

Chris Widener : 1:10:22

Next thing to do is when you need it, when you tweet it tag me, and I will retweet and I think I've got 120,000 fans or something. So I'll pump it out that way.

Unknown Speaker : 1:10:30

Okay. Great. Thank you, Chris. I'll see you around.

Unknown Speaker : 1:10:33

Yeah, sounds good. Thanks. All right, bye bye. Bye,

Chuck Shute : 1:10:37

suck such an energizing conversation with Chris Weidner. What a smart and insightful guy, just dropping lots of pearls of wisdom there. So definitely follow Chris on social media, check out his website, get his books. You can even watch some of his speeches on youtube for free. Speaking of YouTube, I started uploading my episodes there. So that's just another way to get the podcast and we're going to start having video For some of these episodes as well, I'm on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all that good stuff. If you've never listened to my show before, I recommend checking out the 50th episode that I just posted, which is a clips highlights where I take one minute clips from each of the interviews that I've had. And that was a lot of fun to do. If you enjoy the show, make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you really want to go above and beyond, you can write me a review on iTunes. And that will really help me out so thank you so much, and have a great day or night and remember to shoot for the moon.