Transcript of Confidence Classic: The Mindset Shifts That Create REAL Wealth with Chris Harder

Truth of the matter is this. You need other people to succeed, and those other people are attracted to people that seem positive. They're attracted to people that seem like they're full of a positive perspective or opportunity. They don't want to partner. They don't want to help with someone who's negative. They don't want to work with somebody or list someone up who feels like they're always seeing the pessimistic side of things. And so from a practical standpoint, if you have those practices in place, you're going to show up better. When you show up better, other people are going to want to help you get across the finish line.

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So these bonuses are a great way to help you find the ones you may have already missed. I hope you love this one as much as I do. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet our guest today. He's the host of the top rated podcast, The Chris Harder Show. Chris Harder uses his platform to empower entrepreneurs to become unapologetic in their pursuit of wealth and generous in their giving. The foundation of Chris's success as an entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist, is built on his belief that when good people make good money, they do great things. In addition to owning and investing in several multimillion dollar companies, Chris uses his online course, The Money Principles, his two mastermind groups, and his exclusive one-on-one business coaching to help countless clients earn six and seven-figure income. I'm selfishly so glad he's here today to help you and me. Chris, thanks for being here.

Heather, the pleasure is all mine. Thank you so much for having me.

Okay, wait a minute. When I was researching you, I feel like your show, your podcast, used to be called For the Love of Money. Did you change the name?

For the Love of Money. It's interesting. When you start a brand, when you start a show, you have to be really niche. In the title, you have to tell people what they're going to get. We did that for a couple of years. Then that very same thing that was a niche became a lid. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the lid was that some people would be triggered by the title. As a matter of fact, I would get tagged on Instagram so many times where people would be sharing the episode. Heather, they'd say something like, Don't Don't let the title scare you away. This episode is really good. It happened over and over and over again. I realized the very thing I was trying to help overcome, money mindset and our feelings around money, was the thing that was sometimes stopping people from listening to the show. At first it was an advantage, but then it became a lid, and I wanted to remove the lid and also be able to talk about other things that were important to me.

Okay, so that's super interesting to me because I am not triggered by the name for the Love of Money. I don't have any emotion around that at all. It actually surprises me that other people are, what is that all about?

We all have this programming around how we feel about money growing up. Money can be a really shameful, it can be a scary thing. We can have been taught growing up without even realizing it, that we are not meant to pursue it or have too much of it. Or if you're rich, somehow that means you're greedy or bad or you're taking from somebody else. And of course, none of that is the truth. But boy, that programming when we're growing up, That sticks with us when we're adults, and that's hard to shake. And so when somebody needs to learn about money, but they're also triggered by their feelings around money based on their past programming, that's a really tough spot to be because now you may not pick up the book that is meant for you. Now you may not listen to the podcast that's meant for you. Now you may not go to that seminar or go hire that coach that's meant for you because it's such a triggering thing. It's a really tough spot to be in when you've grown up with some of these things being triggers. It's our goal to help to remove a lot of these layers of stories that people have built around money growing up so that we can then make them this clean slate that is available to unapologetically pursue what they were meant to pursue.

When people unapologetically pursue what it was that they were put here to do, then that's when the money starts coming in finally and everything finally starts to hit for them. So we're just trying to get people over that hump a little bit.

Well, and you're absolutely doing that. Now doing that at scale, which is so amazing. One of the things that I really find interesting and I relate to incredibly with you is your background in corporate America, success in corporate America, the traditional way, taking it back a few years. But then that pivot moment in '08 and how you've really launched this nontraditional or more contemporary, massively success successful endeavor in business and entrepreneurial journey. I would love it, just for my own selfish interest, for you to take us back to who you were back in that corporate America banking world that you were in and how that '08 year and situation impacted you.

Yeah, I'd love to take you back there because it's a really important story for a lot of people. I grew up in banking, so to speak. Now, I mean as a kid, but that was the beginning of my career. I was one of the fastest since rising executives at the world's biggest bank. It felt good. It felt like every year I was getting a big new promotion and every year I was going to get a new bonus. The problem was I was young and arrogant and ignorant, and I thought it was going to last forever. Despite people telling me, Hey, this is probably not going to last forever. I thought it was going to last forever. We were living way beyond our means. When I say we, I mean me, even though Lori was my wife because I was taking care of the finances, and she really didn't have any idea that we were that far over extended. What happened was when 2008, 2009 hit, of course, it's a banking and real estate recession, the music stopped and we were left holding the bag. Now, some people have chosen pivots. For example, my wife, a couple of years ago, said, Hey, I don't want to do the self-development thing anymore that I'm doing.

I would love to pivot into building this beverage company. But other people have forced pivots, and that was me in that situation. I was forced when they came to me, said, Hey, we're going to let you go, and here's your severance package. I was forced to pivot. Now, that was a scary very horrible, like disastrous time in the moment. Listen, I'm never going to convince somebody that these moments where you have a forced pivot is going to feel good. But I will promise you, if you're there right now or if you think you're coming up on something like this. I promise you you will look back on this forced pivot with so much fondness and appreciation. And again, it's so hard to realize in the moment, but I promise you'll look back on it because when you get knocked down and when you're stripped of everything, including your identity, because my identity at that time was, what's my title? How many people am I managing? What's my next promotion going to be? When you're stripped of that identity that you think makes you important, well, you get to choose again. I saw this as my opportunity to choose again.

How did I want to show up in the world this time? How did I want to add value? What did I not want to do anymore? Because I'll be honest, the ego and the arrogance that came with that previous version of myself, it wasn't fun. It wasn't comfortable. I didn't like being a judgmental individual. But those were things that came with environment that I was in, and those were things that came with insecurities of being younger, not working through a lot of those things yet. That moment of being able to choose again, hindsight being 2020, was one of the best gifts that was ever given to us.

That's interesting that you bring up that corporate culture. Again, I'm not saying all corporate cultures are this way, but where you're really being rewarded for being that most arrogant version of yourself and putting value towards that title, the bank account, and really prancing that around. It's so funny. That's not unique to banking. I was in the media business, and it was exactly the same way that whoever pulls up in the nicest Mercedes wins and whoever really rewarding those outward values versus who you feel about you are inside and showing up as that real version of yourself.

Yeah, you almost feel like you're playing a role, right? So you've got this shiny exterior on and you're bulletproof, and don't worry, I can take on more work. And don't worry, I'm qualified for this next role. And you almost have to live in to that next role, or maybe even live into the next couple of roles before you get there so that people notice you. It's a game that you have to play if you are in corporate. And I wish it wasn't that way, but the facts are the facts. And that was a role that I was playing. And I wasn't necessarily fully happy that role, but I understood the game and I was willing to win at that game. I'll tell you, the thing I love about entrepreneurship is this. In corporate America, there's only just so many roles that can be given out. For example, If you want VP of this or a C-suite executive of that, there's just so many of those spots that can be given out. It's a competition. You have to almost pull somebody else down, even though you don't want to, in order to get that spot. But in entrepreneurship, there is There is more than enough room for any coach you want to be, or any beverage company you want to build, or any new fintech, which is what I'm working on right now that you want to build.

There is more than enough to go around. So entrepreneurship, I feel like, is more encouraging and inclusive than when I was fighting over one position with maybe 50 other people in corporate America. Now, listen, this is not a corporate America is bad thing. There's none of that because it played such an important role in my life, and we need incredible individuals that are meant to play those roles. But I will tell you, I'm much happier now that I've followed this calling than staying back there.

Absolutely. Again, it's like you said, you can see how the dots connect when you look back, but when you're in it and you're in that low moment, you don't know how those dots are going to connect. What were those first steps that you took to start getting yourself moving?

The first step was grueling. I had to come home and tell Lori, Babe, listen, lost my job today, and we're going to have to sell, a matter of fact, short sell this great big home that we just built. We have to sell or walk away from the rental properties. We have to get rid of all these cars, you name it. I had to break the news, so to speak. I remember Lori looked at me and she was calm, and she paused, and she could She could have been mean, she could have been angry, she could have been all those things, but she wasn't. She looked at me and she said, I will never let this happen again. That became the birth of Laurie, how people know Lauryn today, because until that moment, She never had an opportunity, really, or the urgency to go and develop her skills that she was meant to go and develop. That's one of the positive things that came out of it. Step one was breaking the news. Step two was swallowing and accepting this opportunity at reinvention. Listen, I could have looked at it and said, poor us, or this happened to us, or any of those things, and I didn't.

Of course, I had some anger. I had a lot of insecurity. I have plenty of fear, but I saw it as a bit of relief. I didn't have to play this role anymore, and I got to choose again. I'm telling you, the best thing that you can control is perspective. You're either going to have a negative set of lenses on or an opportunistic set of lenses on. I've always been pretty opportunistic, so I chose the opportunistic set of lenses. I put those on and I said, What could life look like going forward? That's really where our entrepreneurial journey started. Matter of fact, I always had that entrepreneurial bug in me. There were a few things I tried half-heartedly in the past. That seed was always there. This was just the first opening for it to really grow into something. I'll tell you what the third step was, was accepting reality and making the best out of it. In other words, we sold everything or short-sold everything or walked away from everything in order to have a clean slate and started out in a tiny little 900-square-foot loft apartment in downtown Minneapolis and built from there.

Instead of trying to somehow string this out or drag it on, we just said, You know what? Let's tear off the bandaid. Let's start fresh, and then let's build something great going forward with these new lessons that we have in life. That really was what gave us the trajectory, those few steps of launching us, so to speak.

How many years, because you and I were just talking before we turned the recording on about you're now closing on your third home, and you have a different home for every season, and you're living that proverbial American dream now that we all want to live. How long did it take from that rock bottom you had to go home and tell Lori that you had to start over to saying, You know what? I think this is working.

A long time. See, that was about twelve years ago, as you and I sit here and record today. I guess almost 13 years ago. That felt like a short journey, but it's technically a long time. Thirteen years is a long time. What happened was we became so gun-shy. The pendulum always swings too far one way or the other. In losing everything, we became so afraid spend again. We became so afraid to part with our money again that we really had to, and that's a lot of where what I talk about today comes from, we really had to set out to learn what do smart people do with their money? What do the people who have the life that we eventually want, what do they do with their money? How do they behave? How do they think? It was in accumulating all that information and being willing to trust the information that you're accumulating and start to put it into practice. Just a little bit and let that practice turn into small muscles and small muscles turn into large muscles. Here we are 13 years later, and these homes, we're getting these all in basically a one-year period.

It's not like it happens overnight by any stretch of the imagination. But I'll tell you, Laurie and I made a couple of financial rules for ourselves that I would love to share. One of them in order to protect ourselves was that we will never, ever have less than multiple income sources. The rule that we live by is If any one income source went away today, we would not have to change anything about our lifestyle tomorrow. This is the ultimate goal. Heather, this is what people should work towards. We live in a time, multiple income sources is not a luxury. It's a must have because the world is changing so quickly, so dynamically. You want to work towards building enough income sources so that even if your biggest one, even if your best one went away today, you wouldn't have to change your lifestyle tomorrow because the others could support you. That's rule number one. Rule number two was we decided we weren't going to buy anything that's a luxury. Now, I don't mean the home over your head. I don't mean the car that gets you to and from work. I mean the extras, for example, these extra homes or a motor home or a boat or something like it.

We weren't going to buy any of that stuff unless we could pay cash for it. Now, it doesn't mean we do pay cash for it because that would be wasting the chance at leveraging money right now at 3%, which is basically free money. But we will not buy something unless we We can pay cash for it without changing our future lifestyle. That's rule number two that we live by. Then rule number three is just that we try and pause and we really try and ask ourselves, is this just something we want for instant gratification, or is this something that in two or three years, we really see playing a significant role? Let's talk about this Lake home that we're going to close on soon. This is not instant gratification. We already get to go up to Wisconsin every My mom has a Lake home there. We already keep our boat up there. This is not an instant gratification of, Oh, it'd be nice to have this. This is a legacy piece of property that became available, and Lori and I can't wait to bring our kids that we don't have yet, to bring our kids up and make memories and friends and have this be in the family for a long time.

So it's a long-term play instead of an instant gratification play.

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I ask you to try to find your passion. It's so good. I love that you're both on the same page about everything. What role does it play who you chose as your spouse in your entrepreneurial journey?

That's such a great question. So, Laurie and I met when she was 21 and I was 24. Friends first, then became lovers. I wanted to be hooked up right away immediately. She had a different agenda, different timeline than me. I was willing to work through that, be patient, and work through being able to, quote, earn her. But when we met at 21, 24, that's young. And you're very different people than you are today as I'm 44 and she's 41. And so over that 20 years, You become at least three or four different people each. Your likes, your interests, what drives you, everything. It changes radically. As a matter of fact, we should be changing. It's so unfair for people to expect the person they met 10, 15, 20 years ago to be the same person they met. That would be a nightmare. Laurie would be so boring to me if she was the same, Laurie, when she was 21. I would be so boring to her if I was the same Chris, the that I was when I was 24. What's really made it work was a couple of things. One, we've always said we're willing to try it on for size.

Just like when you go in the dressing room, you try an outfit on for size, is it a fit for me? Is it not? Instead of saying, That's a dumb Why would you want to do that? We've made an agreement that we always try each other's ideas on for size. Part of the rule is it doesn't have to be a fit. There is no obligation for it to be a fit. When somebody brings up, Hey, I would love to try this, or I want to switch careers, or what if we could start experimenting with X, Y, and Z? If you shoot it down right away instead of trying it on for size or considering it, that makes the other person feel bad. Then they stop bringing exciting ideas to you, and then that dooms the relationship. You want to create an atmosphere where it's absolutely okay to reinvent yourself or bring new ideas into the relationship and know that the other person isn't going to embarrass you or shoot it down, but instead, they're going to try it on for size. That's been one great rule that's helped us morph into who we are today.

I think the other thing is we have, you're going to laugh at this, but we've always been walkers. We walk three to six miles a day. Every single day, it's a non-negotiable for us. If it's pouring rain, we'll still be out walking. Because when we got that guaranteed container to physically remove ourselves from the place where we've done battle all day and change our state a little bit, and we know that we're going to have that chance to connect first thing in the morning and then at the end of our workday, that's a really important container to be able to talk through anything that would otherwise be put on the back burner. I'll tell you what, we've done a great job of putting things out when there's smoke instead of letting them turn into a fire and trying to put it out then. We're We're able to do that because we've got this daily container where we're willing to address anything that we have to address. Those are just a couple of ways that we've grown into the people that they look at us today and they might say, Oh, it must be nice to have found another entrepreneur that understands how you tick and all that.

We were not those people. We grew into those people together.

I follow both of you on social media, so I don't know whose feed it was on, but one of you had posted about one of your morning walks and you were doing what you do in the morning, which you're really positive, and you were trying to help her reframe something in a positive light. When I was reading that, I thought, there's so much beauty in the individuality of people when they come together in a relationship to be able to add in that moment when someone needs you.

Yeah. Individuality is so important in a relationship. We have such independent lives. I know on social media, they see us together a lot. But for example, tonight, I'm going to the Bucks sons game with three other guys. She's going to go out with some girlfriends. It's so important for us to have separate lives. We have separate businesses, separate friends, separate everything. And of course, we also share a lot of sets of friends and share a lot of things as well. But if you don't have those separate identities, you become very boring to each other. If you don't have those separate identities, everything becomes very monotonous. You run out of things to talk about. I really think it's important to have those separate identities because then, to address what you had just asked about, if I have outside perspective, It's easier for me to maybe steer her back on track because of that outside perspective I had gotten, as opposed to just being in the trenches with her and getting no outside perspective or vice versa. There's so many times where I'll ask her for counsel on something, and she'll have a brilliant idea that she had because of the other people that she's networking with.

Had she just stayed in our own circle, she wouldn't have had that idea to share with me. It's crucial.

It's so powerful. One of the things I really like that you talk about, and this is where I think you with money and wealth and creating abundance is really much more modern than that younger version of yourself, is the importance that you place spirituality in regards to abundance, which was... That was really new to me, and I'd love it if you could share with us how spirituality is a part of wealth.

It's massive. We just talked about this on a walk the other day. Laurie said to me, she said, How much do you think of our financial success has spiritual? Out of the blue on the walk. I said, What a great question. I don't think it was ever really asked me that before. We spent the rest of the one hour hashing it out. We had two different answers. Her answer was damn near all of it. Basically, let's call it 95% was spiritual. Mine was 60 to 80%, and then I think I settled on about 80%. Here's the premise of both of our answers. When you have a really good spiritual practice, whether it's prayer or meditation, when you believe in something bigger than you, when you have the consistency of those practices that can kick you back in the game when you're having a bad day or a bad moment or a bad whatever, those small shifts, when they start to shift you back into the game, those have a compound learning effect. And so what might seem like a small adjustment then has a positive impact on the next thought that you have, and that has a positive impact on the next thought that you have.

And before you know it, you've totally turned around the energy that you're operating with, and you're showing up brighter, and you're showing up more positive, and you're showing up more opportunistic than if you didn't have that spiritual practice. I can tell you that without a doubt, spirituality is, I'm going to put the number 80% of our success. She's going to put the number 95 to 100% of our success. But the punchline would be, you're not going to reach your peak. You're not going to reach what you're capable of doing without having strong spiritual practices.

So one of the things that confuses me, and I truly, truly mean this, because I was much older in life when I had my pivot. I was 43 when I was fired from corporate America. I had learned through proof, through I thought. I didn't have a spiritual practice. I worked incredibly. It was the grind, and I made a ton of money. I created a lot of success and wealth without the spiritual practice with the grind. Now, cut to today and your teachings and so many people's teachings is all about your relationship with energy, the universe, God, that which is bigger, that spiritual concept, meditating, which to me, if somebody had told me that when I was in corporate America, I would have laughed at them and told them they're lazy or crazy. And then this idea of working smarter, not harder, to really sustain what you're doing and grow to the next level. I truly find it at time, even though I am embracing what you're saying, and I truly am leaning into there's so much more beyond us out there, and it's steering us the right way, and I want to be in that flow and let it guide But there are moments I have to come back and fight with this.

Hang on, maybe I should just go out and work harder and make this thing happen.

You are more like me, and then Lori would be more on the opposite end of the spectrum. So let me try and bridge the gap for you a little bit. I always like to say, whether you're woo-woo or whether you're super pragmatic and practical, there's an explanation for both. If you're woo-woo, no different than energy. Let's talk about energy. When you tune a radio to a certain frequency, it goes out, it tracks another frequency, and that brings it in. You get the song or the baseball game or whatever it is that you wanted us to do on the radio. From a woo-woo standpoint, I have had so many experiences in life where I have prayed on or meditated on or journaled forever something, and it eventually happens. Now, from a practical and pragmatic standpoint, which is more where I lean, I have had those same experiences. I can explain it from the standpoint of, listen, if you're constantly journaling something you want to manifest, and if you're constantly picturing something that you want to manifest. Sooner or later, it's going to have an effect on that very first action that you take that starts to make that thing appear.

Then because you took that first action, now it causes you to take a second action. Because you're taking consistent action, now it might attract somebody to come be a business partner or help you get there because they see you taking action. Before you know it, you receive this thing that you are working towards because you've taken the right actions and the right people have helped you. That's a very practical way of looking at why things appear, why things happen when you are constantly envisioning them and when you have a good spiritual practice. Because the truth of the matter is this, you need other people to succeed. Those other people are attracted to people that seem positive. They're attracted to people that seem like they're full of positive perspective or opportunity. They don't want to partner. They don't want to help with someone who's negative. They don't want to work with somebody or or list someone up who feels like they're always seeing the pessimistic side of things. And so from a practical standpoint, if you have those practices in place, you're going to show up better. When you show up better, other people are going to want to help you get across the finish line.

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I couldn't agree more with you, and this is super interesting because this just happened the past couple of months for me, is someone who's big into energy, which again, this is all new in my world, was talking to me about my holdbacks in my life. And what she said to me was, she said, You were so surrounded by fear and this idea of unsafety, not being safe for so much of your life, you were attracting people into your life that would in turn ensure that you weren't safe because they didn't feel safe. And then they'd be threatened by you, and then you'd be fired or whatever. It was an interesting That's the following domino effect that she laid out for me, and it made all the sense in the world. For people who are in those moments right now where they don't feel safe, they feel scared, they're full of fear, and they don't want to keep attracting more fear to them, what are the steps that you advise them to take?

When people are scared, when they have a lot of fear, they feel like they're typically afraid of the unknown. They feel like things are out of their control. When you start to pull things into your control, for example, if you say, All right, I don't trust the thing that he's saying right now. I think this is all a bunch of BS, but I'm willing to try it because what I'm doing right now is not working. When you start to take things into control by saying, All right, can I picture for five minutes a day the life that I really want? Yes. So I'll start doing it even though I don't believe in it. And then you say, Could I maybe read 10 pages of a positive book every single day to start my day before I do anything else? Yes, I don't believe in it, but I could do it. And then when you start to say, Okay, could I go to a self-development thing, or could I get a coach, or could I do these things that I don't believe in, but technically I could do it? Yes. Now look what's happening. Your fear comes from thinking you don't have control.

But now you're starting to control your perspective Now you're starting to control who's going to come into your life and who's not. Now you're starting to control some of the actions that you take. And those things have a snowball effect. And before you know it, you're going to start to see little wins. And little wins will string together into what feels like a medium-sized win. You say, Wow, this might actually be working. Those medium-sized wins will string together into what you look back on and say, Holy crap, this is a massive win. It's just, if you could trace it all the way back, it traces back to You are afraid because you feel like you don't have control. But if you control the little baby things, even if you don't trust them yet, if you control the little baby things that control your perspective, that then control your actions, that then control your results, you do that long enough and consistently enough, it's inevitable that you're going to end up getting to where you want to get.

I love the idea of starting off small, too, because when you are really scared and you are feeling stuck, taking a big leap or making a huge change just does not seem within the potential of No, Heather, there's been so many things I do, tiny little habits that I think are complete BS.

Remember, I told Lauren, and we have the agreement, we always try things on for size. I have tried so many things on for size that I thought, this is the biggest load I have BS, but I'm going to do it because I promise to try it on for size. I could do it, so therefore I did do it. I did do it long and consistently enough to all of a sudden where I realized, Wait, I'm getting some positive results. Even if I don't trust it yet, if I'm getting positive results from something, I'm going to keep doing it. As you get more positive results, that compounds into a bigger positive result and so on. I'm telling you, I'm not asking you to trust it yet. I'm not asking you to believe in it yet. I'm not asking you to do any of that stuff. But if what you're doing right now isn't working, then begrudgingly, reluctantly, do these small little practices, whether it is reading 10 pages a day, whether it is listening to a positive podcast, whether it is waking up to a mantra. Do these small steps, even if you don't believe in them yet, consistently.

I promise you will start to see small results turn into medium results, turn into big results.

What are some of the mantras that you use?

I wake Laurie up every single I say, this has been doing it for years. I wake her up and I say, I'm happier, healthier, wealthier, and more fit than I was yesterday, and I make her say it back to me. And by the way, the reason why I say, than I was yesterday, it feels like a small increment. I can believe in that, right? You know what people can't believe in when they're like, someone advises them to say a mantra like, I am a hundred millionaire. And in their mind, they're like, This is bullshit. I'm not. But what you can say is that, You know what? I am happier, healthier, wealthier, and more fit than I was yesterday. That's a small increment that you can believe in. And so I wake her up to that and I make her say it back to me. It's such a love-hate relationship thing, Heather, because she's like, sleeping and she's like, Leave me alone. I'm like, No, say it back like you mean it. She'll say it back, and then I'll roll over real quick and I'll just say a tiny prayer of things I'm grateful for. We're talking less than 60 seconds, and it's so random and juvenile.

I'll be like, I'm so grateful that my dog's laying across my legs. I'm grateful I woke up next to Laurie. I'm grateful I woke up in this beautiful home. String together 60 seconds of things that you are grateful for. Now, by the time my feet hit the ground, I have chosen what set of lenses, what colored lenses I want to see my morning through. If you can control how you see your morning, you can easier control how you see things unfold in your afternoon. If you can control how you see things unfolding in your afternoon, then you can easier control the end result of your day. That's the mantra I wake Laurie up to, but I actually text people a different mantra, whether it's a money mindset mantra or a positive business perspective, every single day that I wake up Monday through Friday. The idea was Lauryn's. I got to give her credit. But she's like, Listen, I hate, but I also love that you do this for me. You should do this for other people. I'm like, Oh, my God, you're right. And so I said, Hey, text me the word daily to 310 421 0416 if you want me to text you a positive mantra or business perspective every morning when I wake up.

And people started texting it to me. So I had to keep my promise, started texting back. Now I text thousands and thousands of people every single morning, a positive money mindset mantra or a positive business perspective. And the responses, Heather, are the greatest things on the planet. I love reading them because about noon I'll open up my text, I'll start looking at all the responses. The way people say, Oh, my God, I needed this today, or, Hey, I was about to make a really bad decision, and this changed my perspective on it, it's the best feeling on the planet. It's one of the coolest things I do.

Will you share with everybody how they can sign up for that text program?

Yeah, totally free. No strings attached. It's literally was Lori's idea, and this is my way of giving back. But if you text me, personally, the word daily, just text me the word daily to 310-421-0416. Again, it's 310-421-0416. Then I'll put you on the list and you'll be part of my daily texting.

I love that you're doing it. So much of what you do, Chris, and it comes across so clear on social, is about giving back. What role does the give back play in your business, in your life, and in who you are?

I mean, first of all, it feels good. When you help somebody else, whether you give them $5, whether you open the door for them, whether you give them some good advice, it feels good, right? Intuitively It feels good. I believe that those feelings were putting us for a reason so that we do it more. No different than, Hey, it feels really good to procreate, or to at least practice it. I believe that those feelings were put into us so that we will continue to procreate. Well, same thing with doing good for others. It was placed in you, that dopamine hit, so that you would do it more. Here's what happens. When you give, even if you have very little or nothing, if you give a dollar, everyone could give a dollar, even if you don't know where your rent is coming from next. If you give a dollar, it signals to yourself that, sure enough, in this very moment, I did have excess. And excess, by definition, is abundance. And if I have excess I'm in abundance now, well, then I am not in as bad of a situation as I think I'm in, and I could probably find a way to manufacture or create more excess or abundance so I can get this dopamine hit again.

Heather, when you do things for other people, you are willing to run through a wall much further, faster, tougher than when you do it for yourself. Have you ever tried to stick to something for yourself and you let yourself off the hook? Or like, Oh, I'm going to do this diet now, or I'm going to do this new habit now, and you let yourself off the hook. But when you do it for somebody else, you show up big. That's because intuitively, we were designed to show up for other people. That's how the world is supposed to work. Why not leverage that? Why not feed off those dopamine hits, make the world a better place, and then in return, Because you're feeling good, you're doing good. I'll share a really quick example that makes it really tangible. I've got a friend, his name is Steve. Starting years ago, Steve and his wife said, I'm going to give $50,000 this year. Now, they didn't have a lot of money. I think they were probably making $150,000 a year at the time when they made this commitment. That's a bold commitment. But because they committed to it, they then had to flip the script and say, Oh, God, if we're going to keep this promise, how are we going to find an extra to make sure we keep our promise?

Sure enough, at the end of the year, they had a record income year. They said, Well, that worked pretty good. Why don't I up it? I think they upped it, I'm not kidding, to $250,000 from 50 to $50,000. I know. Sounds crazy, right? They had no idea where that 250 was going to come from, but they said, Well, we better find a way. Ask a better question, get a better answer. Well, we better find a way. Where are we going to be able to get this extra 250 from? Then that became their first seven-figure year. They far exceeded seven figures. Because they They had the evidence. They said, Well, I'm just going to keep choosing a big, audacious giving goal that we commit to and that we hold ourselves to because it's forcing us to then go out, earn the challenge of keeping up whatever we committed to as a giving goal. I'm telling you that leveraging the power of giving to other people will always come back and help you out tenfold.

Wow, that is such an incredible story, but it makes perfect sense that once you are really committed to that act, giving away the $50,000, you're going to do whatever it takes to find a way to get it there. That's a great story. I love that they were doing it out of the goodness of their heart, which I think is probably what opened up some of the doors to allow them the success they found.

Right. Let's go back to our logical sides. Forget the woo-ou stuff for a minute. When people see you giving, they're like, Oh, that's a good person. I would like to help them. Now it's a little bit easier to get a client, or now it's a little bit easier to get some marketing advice. It becomes a snowball in your favor. Then when They start really giving. For example, when you go to charity events, who else is at charity events? People with good hearts that have also done well financially, hence why they're at that table or why they're at that Black Tie event. Now your networking is up-leveled because it's not just successful people, but it's good-hearted successful people. Because they're a good-hearted successful people, of course, that means they're going to be much more likely to help you collaborate on something and so on. I'm telling you, it is literally one of the best secrets to success is turn yourself into a giving machine, and then you're going to be put into this cycle of everybody giving back to everybody because they recognize a fellow giver.

That's the best way that I've ever figured out to get to somebody in business is to find, how can I add value to them? How can I give to them? And the funny thing is a new friend of mine in the past year came to me and said, I want to help you. I want to help you get your message out to more people. And he made some amazing contacts for me out of nowhere. And then this week, he needed a big favor, and he left me long message, and I just text him back. The answer was already yes. You've given so much good to me. You don't need to justify or ask. Just say you need a favor, and I'm here to help. I think so often we forget. We think, What can I get out of this instead of if we lean with what can I give in this situation? How can I add value to this person? From a business pragmatic standpoint, for me, that is the best single best way for me to get to anybody in business.

Yeah, it really is. People want to help someone who helped them out. Start tilting that law of reciprocity in your favor now.

Oh, that's a powerful one. Chris, give us the texting again because I think people are really going to want to get messages from you to help them up level their thoughts around abundance and wealth.

Yes, totally. I'm not kidding. It's the nerdiest thing ever. I freaking love when people text me back how it changed your day. Text me the word daily to 310-421-0416. It's legit. It goes to my phone. I text you each morning when I wake up a positive perspective. It's my favorite thing I do. So again, text me the word daily to 310-421- 0416.

Chris, thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for all the advice and abundance you are putting out into the universe. I appreciate you, and I appreciate you being here.

No, I appreciate you having me on the show. Total privilege. Thank you.

Until next week, keep creating your confidence.

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