Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Coach Chuck Barnard, The Champion’s Mindset Mentor

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Coach Chuck Barnard is an author, speaker, champion’s mindset mentor, and a father of four who has been in the education industry for over 30 years. Chuck has a master’s degree in special education, is certified in Advanced Behavioral Modeling, and is a Master NLP, Time-Line Therapy® and Hypnotherapy Practitioner. He has been a skier for 56 years, has walked across burning coals with Tony Robbins on three different occasions and loves traveling. Chuck has been a baseball player or coach for 50 years. Chuck’s greatest passion is to see teenagers become champions not only on the athletic field and in the classroom, but most importantly in life.Learn More: https://coachchuck360.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-coach-chuck-barnard-the-champions-mindset-mentor

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us, Coach Chuck Barnard, the Champions Mindset Mentor. Chuck, welcome to the program. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's, uh, feel honored to be here. Hey, you know, I, I'm excited to talk with you because I can just tell so much about someone's,

uh, business title, you know, and, and champions mindset mentor says so much because if you want to be a champion, one of the first places you start is your mindset. And many times we get caught up in our own perspective, and our own mindset, and we need someone to pull us out of that from the third-party perspective and have that mentor. So I want to hear all about what you do and how you do it and why you do it, but get us started first with a little bit of your story and background. And I know a lot of times it's great to, you know, start with where you're at and then where do you want to go? So one of the places that it's great to start is what's your biggest failure? How did that shape your perspective on success? Oh, that's a great question. And, you know,

there's really two. And they've kind of bookend my adult life. And the first one was really my first journey into entrepreneurship right out of college. And I had, when I graduated college in 1986, I was preparing to go into the Navy. And at the end of that summer, I got the letter in the mail with a, return address, the United States Navy, and like, this seems a little thin here. And I opened it up, and it was a rejection letter. And I was like, wow, I, like, my recruiter said, I'm going to be in.

I was, what do I do now? Well, that, within an hour of opening that letter, I got a phone call for the Auburn Public Library that the book I reserved was in. and I didn't reserve a book, but my mom had, because she and I had, I know, a few weeks earlier, I've been listening to this young guy on like Good Morning America or The Today Show, one of those, pushing his book on this new psychology,

and we were both enthralled. So I went down the library, got that book read it cover to cover, and it changed the direction of my life. The book was unlimited power, and the author was Tony Robbins. Well, I went out and I was determined to go meet Tony. So that spring, after working for a while, saving up money,

I moved out to California to try to meet Tony. And, well, I came back to Maine at the end of the summer with a certificate that I was certified neurolinguistic programming practitioner from Robbins Research Institute. And now at that time, Tony's like 28. I'm 22, so he's not much older than me. He's really successful. I'm like, man, I can do that. Nobody's doing that in Maine.

He's out in California. I can do that. Well, that was my beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. And, you know, I think the statistics are like half, more than half the business has failed within the first five years. That was me. Every mistake in the book, I had no idea how to run a business. wasn't anywhere near as easy as I imagine it would be.

I was broke, no direction. I had no idea what was going on. But out of that, you know, you can begin to file those lessons. The second one was just a few years ago. It's different in context. And the failure was not... It was because I'm a mindset guy, right? And it really wasn't being aware of what was going on in my wife's life.

And I knew she was under stress. And, you know, I've taught for years, worked with kids for years on managing stress and all that. And I made assumptions that she was dealing with it because she wasn't showing what I was thinking of the usual signs. well, when she finally wasn't feeling well enough that she went to the doctor, and I had been encouraging her for a little while to go to the doctor. She went in like April of 2022. We didn't get the test all done until June, found out she had cancer. July she passed away.

So that my mind, that failure was missing things. that I probably shouldn't have, the signs that she wasn't really dealing with stress the way she should have been, and that I could have maybe helped, and that sort of thing that you go through mentally, emotionally, and all that. And, you know, it, I think it's that latter experience that really, really made me appreciate Emerson's view of success, Ralph Waldo, And, you know, he says success is laughing often, with the respect of intelligent people, the affection of children, earning the appreciation of honest critics and enduring the betrayal of false friends,

appreciating beauty and finding the best in others, giving oneself and leaving the world a bit better, whether it through a healthy child, a guidance patch, or a deemed social condition, playing, laughing, singing with enthusiasm, knowing that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. And I'd last hold of that. And that is really becoming my mission. And in some ways, part of that always was trying to help other people.

But it's given it kind of a new urgency, particularly with that, you know, the experience in grief of my wife passing away. Yeah. You know, it's interesting when you mentioned about the letter from the Navy and then the book being checked out of an intro to Tony Robbins and all of that. It reminds me of that old quote. And I know that you're a quote guy, but when a door closes, a window opens. You know, that Navy letter was a punch in the gut. And then, you know, you could have ignored that book. You know, like, I'm not going to go get it. Or I'm going to read it, but not be open to other opportunities. But that opened up a new path for you. But yet, At the moment that the Navy letter came could have been a time that you just said, I give up. What do you think it was at that time in your life? Because looking back on it now, you can say it was a champion's mindset. But at that moment, what kept you going? That's another great question. And in that moment, I'm not sure except to say that growing up, I'm a baseball guy, right?

baseball with my passion. And I had some good coaches over the years and got fortunate to play with some really good players. But one of the things I love about baseball, even now is maybe more so now as an adult and coach, is the lessons that teach you about failure, right? Because you fail all the time in baseball. Maybe not all the time, but, you know, a lot, right? 300 hit or fail seven out of ten times.

And it was just, I think, that kind of built-in thing like, all right, I just struck out. Hey, next at bat, next pitch, let's go. And I think that those lessons from all those years of baseball and hearing coaches kind of drum that in, once I processed that letter, it's like, and then particularly reading everything Tony talks about in that book, It's like, all right, this is good stuff. I'm going to pursue this. You know, next pitch, let's go. That's cool.

I think that's astute to say at the moment that it happened, you really didn't know, but you did put just one foot in front of the other. And it's just sometimes when we get in our own head, sometimes that's all we can do, right? I mean, you know, what's the next best thing I can do right now with what I know right now, about the facts of this situation. Well, I guess I could, whatever that is. Don't look at the big picture of going, where is this going to lead 20 years down the road?

What should I do right now? So those lessons that you just described about the Navy letter and your wife, those are lessons of failure. Do you think you could have learned the success lessons without having that pain and struggle? No, no. And it's something about that the failure aspect of it. And I don't necessarily always like the word failure.

It's important word and all. But it's the lessons, right? But the failure forces you almost ask different questions. And I don't think I really fully began to get that until after that experience with my business, God was direct to me into education. And for most of my professional career, I worked in schools with students who really struggled with school.

And that was the right journey for me at that time. And it gave me during all that, because some of the things I worked with students on, too, is learning to ask better questions of yourself when you fail. So from an education standpoint, right, when I'm dealing with kids who, quote, fail a lot, have a history of, quote, failing,

when I begin to ask them, like, all right, so how did you do that? And the first kind of reaction is like, what, I don't, they don't quite get the question, how did I do that? I said, well, how did you fail at that? What was the process for doing that? And by forcing them to begin to look internally and to begin to ask different questions,

like I don't really know, like, how I failed. But you begin to break down the steps that go into the failure, right? And through that, you can then begin to learn how not to do that again, if that kind of makes sense to you. It does because it's almost like, ow, this pain of this event, whatever you want to call it, failure or whatever, hard lesson. It does not feel good. How can I prevent that again? So let's break it down.

What was the thing that triggered the thing right before the end? And it reminds me of that statement. You know, I've said this many times when I've done presentations in front of people, you know, hey, complete this phrase. You either win or you, and people are like, lose. And I'm like, no, you win or you learn. And I think that's a big point of what you're making here. you're just noticing things. Their outcomes you didn't prefer.

So what can I learn from it and how can I prevent it from happening again? Or if it was a good outcome or success, how can I replicate it to have it keep happening? Yeah. And, you know, that latter piece sometimes we miss. And I just just this morning having a conversation with somebody talking about athletics again in the coaching aspect. And my son had a real struggle after his freshman year in high school that summer. His first year really going up what was going to be the next wave of varsity baseball players. And he got one hit, very last at bat, a C&I single, that's real.

And he was broken in spirit, right? Like self-doubt, all that other stuff. Well, we went to work. and by the time he was a junior when the four years started, Shortsop had graduated the year before. Shortsop's spots open. He wins it. He becomes an all-conference player. But that next year wasn't quite as good.

And he will tell you that it was because he didn't, he kind of forgot how he got there. And he didn't ask the questions about how do I stay there. And sometimes we forget that in the success. which is why I think failure can be so valuable, right? He learned that senior year through not, it wasn't necessarily failure because he had an okay season. It just wasn't as good as he felt it should have been. But the lesson was just that.

I didn't live up to my own expectations. I failed in reaching my goals. This is why. But he came to that point because he didn't ask the right, questions after being successful. Yeah. Wow. And it's neat to be able to, A, learn these lessons yourself and kind of try them out in the laboratory of your own experience and then pass them on to your family because now that's creating a legacy that's long lasting, right? So when your kids see you transform setbacks into

stepping stones, they go, ooh, I can do that. So talk a little bit. So talk a little bit. bit about that. How, what specifically did you do and do you recommend how we can transform setbacks into stepping stones? You know, I talk a lot about habits and rituals in your lives and using those. Those become those stepping souls and foundation to self-growth, self-reflection. The self-reflection is a big one. It's one of those parts of those rituals that I began to build in my life. During my career working with teenagers in public education, because I talked about it, but I wasn't living it.

And I needed to be more congruent with that. So I started really working on putting these rituals into my life. And I had begun to learn even before I really have visualized that the importance of self-reflection, journaling in particular, right? But I used to self-reflect without really getting things down on paper. And, you know, getting it on paper is a really is a game changer. I can't overstate the value of writing it. down and getting those thoughts out of your head, those questions on your head, asking the

kind of questions we were just talking about, but seeing it on paper and building that into a daily habit, one of several things, but not also necessarily like hiding that. My kids know my my habits and my routines and I encourage them not they don't to make their own their principles that you need to do in these rituals

and two in particular are reflection at the end of the day and practicing gratitude both at the beginning and the end of the day I think those are two huge ones pieces and

when you do that and And, you know, you go through a whole planning process on a fairly frequent basis, that's what keeps you moving towards those goals. And those goals may shift and change and ebb and flow. But it's something that you just keep working towards. You know, the business goals that I wrote down, and I found my notebook about two, two and a half years, maybe it's three years ago, from Tony Robbins training they went through back in 1987 and the goals I wrote down. And it was amazing how many I did accomplish, but how many were still left to accomplish.

And that's my journey right now. Yeah. That's huge. And I love that you focused on writing things down because in today's day and age with technology and the kids these days, right? You know, it's like, oh, just text me this, an instant message to that. And there's something, and I know research backs this up. There's something about actually grabbing pen and paper and writing something down.

You know, it's the focus. It's the action. It's, you know, getting it into your brain more. So I think that's such a huge point. Have you seen that research about how writing actually makes things come to life more? Yeah, absolutely. It was something I told my students. often that that is something about the writing process, not typing.

It doesn't seem. I mean, getting it down, if you have to type or whatever reason, great, right? You get it down. But it's the writing process that neurological, biological, biological, physiological connection between the writing process and the thinking, just it's better. Yeah. And and then what you can then do is go back to your notes, your journals, your writing, maybe let's call it quarterly, and then reread that and add some highlights and add some underlines and add some extra notes. And it helps you then reinforce that.

So I think it's just staying true, you know, your compass dialed into that true north. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, there's a reason why so many of the elite people in Desmond industry journal, right? Yeah. I mean, that's huge. Hey, so all of these kind of touch points we've looked at over your past career and where you are helping to train others to make their way through this by polishing up the mindset. It really took resilience, you know, kind of like the thick skin. Like, you know, just don't let it affect you.

and then adaptability because you are making sure that when you hit that roadblock, do you just go back and retreat? No, you might need to tweak and adapt and make slight changes. Talk a little bit about how resilience and adaptability factor into your journey to success. That's good. You know, way back in the early trainings of neurolinguistic program, I mean, one of the presuppositions behind that NLP model and all is this idea of this law of requisite variety, which I really grabbed the whole of.

And essentially that is the person, principle, idea, systems that have the greatest degree of flexibility or adaptability, are going to achieve the greatest results. You know, when you are repeating the same thing over and over and not getting the results, right? What's the old saying? Insanity. Definition of sanity, right? Yeah.

So by definition, really, to get somewhere or where you want to go, you really have to be ready, willing, and able to adapt on that journey. And, you know, it's a mindset. It really is a product of the beliefs that you have and the decisions and all these, the values and all the things that are kind of there at the unconscious level that shape your mindset. And that's going to impact how adaptable you are. And it's trainable. That's one of the things I, you know, encourage people.

It was like that's something you can learn to become more of. What I am finding, and I just finished reading a great book, The Comfort Crisis or the Crisis in Comfort, something like that. And what happens to people sometimes is they get so comfortable with where they're at. they don't want change or to adapt to anything and therefore it's really impossible to kind of grow personally professionally if you aren't willing to get uncomfortable and that is kind of tied up this whole idea of adaptability and and resilience is it's right along with that it's really kind of The way I've viewed resilience is it's, again, it's a byproduct of your mindset.

It's a byproduct of all these beliefs that no matter what has happened to me, I'm in control of how I'm going to interpret those. And I have decisions that I need to make based on this. and if I want to get to this end journey, this end goal and result, then I need to, if a roadblocks come up here, I either need to find a way how to remove it, go over it, around it, through it, under it. But that decision-making process, those beliefs that drive that,

that is what leads to what we think of as resilience. The person just keeps going. They keep, I like, I've said it this way with, on a number of times, right? If we want to really model resilience, we want to think of a young child learning to walk. Because how, they don't even think anything of it. They fall down, crawl a little bit, get back up, you know, smile, fall down again. that there is no even thought of doing anything else but getting back up. That is a beautiful picture of resilience.

Yeah, because as a parent, at what point do you stop helping them learn to walk and just give up on them? We don't. As a parent, at what point do we give up on that toddler when they keep falling down and just say, I guess they'll never walk? We don't because we know it just takes get up and do it again, get up and do it again. Right, exactly. Exactly. That's huge.

Yeah, I think that's a big point. And, you know, sometimes we can feel like we have, you know, really polished up on that resilience. And then the next week, it's like, oh, you just hit rock bombs. So you just got to keep picking yourself up and dusted yourself off each time, too. So let's wrap up with this, Chuck. If you had to give advice to someone afraid of failure, what would that be? It's understanding where failure. a fear comes from.

And, you know, we're human beings, right? So we're going to experience these motions. And we have what I've kind of talked about as the rational fear, which is really the fear that what was designed for, which is that protective mode, right, where you should be afraid if you feel, you see somebody pointing a gun at you, or you're in a situation where the external,

events are indicating that there's potential danger here. So the fear kind of response kicks in. So you've got to make that decision to flee or to fight or what have you, right? That's things that are going on externally that you can see here, smell, feel, what have you. And that's reasonable, rational. That's what fear is all about. But so much of the fear that cripples us is irrational. It's imagined fear.

It's what we are doing in our own minds created fear. It's about what we think might happen sometime in the future. And we get fearful of that. We are afraid of what somebody might say or think or what have you. So that fear of failure, is what they are imagining in their mind. And there is no reason for us to let that imagine fear dominate or cripples. They need to learn how to let go of that emotion of fear,

how to interrupt that pattern, how to change that thinking. And there's processes for doing that. You know, there's, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Mark Devine in the work Mark Devine does. He's the former ABC on Beatable Mine business and all. But he tells in some of his work the old Native American parable, a story where a grandfather's teaching some lessons to his grandson and he's talking to the grandson about the two wolves that are fighting inside of us.

And, you know, one of them's the courage wolf and one of them's the fear wolf. And they're battling, they're battling. The grandson asks the grandfather, well, which one wins? And the grandfather answers whichever one you feed the most. And that's where this whole idea of habits come in, right? When we build our habits and our rituals that are designed to keep feeding the courage wolf,

that's the one that will win. And the other piece that I also work with when I'm working with clients and all is showing them how to weed out their garden, so to speak, where we take out some of those old weeds of emotions that have been unresolved that they're holding on to, teach them how to learn the lesson that needed,

we learned and then let go of that emotion because when we hold on to those kind of emotions like fear and anger and hurt and guilt and all those when we keep those and keep those bottled in that's what was really happening with my wife and that's where the cancer came from that's where disease can come from that's where bad health comes from is is when we are internalizing it and not not letting it go. So teaching that, teaching those habits, there's no reason whatsoever to ever let an emotion like fear rule your life. 100%.

Well, Chuck, wrap us up here with these thoughts that we've talked about here. What is the main approach that you take to help clients? Do you have a program or do you have a class that you provide and then what's the best way people can learn more and reach out and connect with you. Yeah, so essentially the core prerequisite of anything I do is this mindset transformation training. And in that process, we kind of go through a three-stage process where first we make sure that the person's really ready to take responsibility for things like their time,

their emotions, the labels they have, their beliefs. their values, their memories, what that really means to take responsibility. And then from there, we show them how to weed that guidance, to clean up those memories to kind of break through those limiting beliefs and labels and decisions and things that they've made. And then we'll give them some ideas on how to build habits. The second part of the program is if you need hope, then I have a whole program to help to help you build those habits, right? There's a whole process for that,

but that stage, that would be a second part, but that transformational part where you take responsibility and learn to let go in and of itself can be quite profound. If anybody wants to get in touch with me, learn more, Coachch360.com,

Coachch360.com, they have everything there. And would it be all right if I, offer a free gift to your... No, that'd be awesome. To your audience. So if they go to chock360.com and there's a

contact me section there, if they were to email me, their first and last name, best email, and I can then send them a unique calendar link where we could actually schedule a strategy session. And now I usually charge $350 for an hour session. That would be waived. So that's why the unique link.

But in that, we would have a conversation. I'd be asking a whole lot of questions about their mindset, how they handle stress, the self-esteem, and kind of give them a report, a strategy on, all right, this is what I found. This might be what you want to address and want to go with. And they can then take that. and do what they want with that.

Perfect. Well, Chuck, thank you so much for coming on today. It was a real pleasure chatting with you. And thanks for having me. Appreciate it. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.