Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Mini Episode: Life Advice From Pro Wrestlers - Cena, Rock, Cody Rhodes, DDP, Ryback, Justin Roberts

Episode Date: December 4, 2019

Life advice and motivation from pro wrestlers! I realized that there were so many great pieces of life advice dropped during the interviews that I've done over the last few years that I wanted to make a compilation so they are all in one place. We hear from John Cena, The Rock, Al Snow, Zach Gowen, Diamond Dallas Page, Cody Rhodes, Ryback and Justin Roberts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's Chrysomania, brother. That's a great question. Look at you. man with the powerful questions this is the Chris Van Vleecho Ladies and gentlemen Chris Buhriss How are you my friends? Welcome to mini

episode number two on the CVV show The response to the first mini app Was great Thank you for that I appreciate it I'm gonna keep these coming for you And yes I just called it a mini app Why not right? Why not shorten it and save Two syllables?

mini app. So Thursday is the official podcast day for the show. I announced that a few weeks ago, but we're going to pepper in these mini-ups every once in a while. So it's just kind of like, bam, boom, there you go. Many episode. And if there's something that you want to hear, if there's something that you want me to talk about, send me a tweet, reach out to me on Instagram at Chris Van Fleet. Let me know what it is that you want me to talk about. And if you're feeling a little down, or maybe you feel like you're stuck in a rut, you don't know what's next for you personally or professionally, this is going to help you out so much. It's going to motivate you like crazy. You know, and over the years of doing these interviews with all of our favorite pro-wrestlers,

I realized there was a theme that was kind of strung along through all of them. These people didn't get to this level of success and fame by accident. You know, there was all hard work. It was preparation. It was setting goals. And it was chasing after them and absolutely crushing them. So I put together this compilation so that all of these little pieces of advice could live together in one place and hopefully help shine some light on whatever situation that happens to be going on in your life. It's going to be hard to listen to this and not feel motivated after it. You're going to recognize a lot of the voices in here, but since you won't be seeing these people, in order here, we have John Sina, the Rock, Al Snow, Zach Gowan, Diamond Dallas Page, Cody Rhodes. Ryback and Justin Roberts. So let me know what you think of this.

Let me know which piece of advice stuck out the most for you in your life, which one spoke directly to you. Oh man, there's so much good stuff in here. So enough for me. Let's get to mini episode number two. It's life advice from pro wrestlers. I've never been close-minded to anyone's opinion because you can learn from everybody. I've chosen to learn as much as I can from that.

six-year-old because I believe his opinion, his or her opinion is not jaded, it is truthful, it is honest because they're at that stage in their lives where they're just giving you what they believe. But I don't close my ears to a 25, a 35, a 35-year-old who has all the criticisms by work. I have to be cognizant of that and try to do what I can to perform at a level that's acceptable to everybody. So I, bro, I learn from everyone. So this is more of a tutorial for like my pieces of semi-sage advice bestowed upon you, don't waste time and energy over the uncontrollable. It would be awesome if I was champion.

It would be awesome if I was a bad guy. It would be awesome if it was this and this and this. Take what you have and make it something great. I've often thought about like, oh, this would be cool. Those are fleeting thoughts and they're gone. And I go back to what am I doing with what's in front of me right now? Yeah. And I think that's the best way to develop a long-term successful career in a business where you are relied on to be creative.

People give you creative, raw creative material. And anyone who have ever had long-term success in this business has had to take that material and massage it and put themselves into it and put their belief into it and make it their own. Do you have any ambitions to break Rick Flair's record and be the 17-time champion? Control, the control. Guys, I'm hammering home this point. Would you like that to be a thing? It's not even in my mind. It's not because if it is, then it becomes the ring and like, it's my precious.

And it's why? It's not even in my mind. It's just it either sets me up for a moment that may not meet my expectations or sets me up for disappointment. Figure out what's right in front of you, this, this conversation. and do the best with this. I know that it was your dream growing up to play pro football. If you could go back, obviously things worked out pretty well for you. If you could go back and change anything to make that happen, would you change anything?

That's a great question. Look at you, man, with the powerful questions. Deco coming in. Deco's going to be proud of you, buddy. No, I wouldn't change a thing. I worked so hard to play pro football, it didn't happen for me. It was a sobering experience because it was the realization of, hey, you're not good enough, by the way. their players were and they made it and I'm happy for them.

Ray Lewis, Warren Sapp, a lot of the guys who I played with, but no, I wouldn't change a thing because everything happens for a reason. And I also learned this, which was something, which was a bit of advice I learned a few years ago and I always care with me that sometimes things don't happen when they don't. They can be the best things that never happen. Since your book has a lot of life advice in it, and someone's watching this and maybe they don't enjoy their job or they don't enjoy what they're doing, period. What kind of, like, what's the best advice that you have for someone like that?

Two things. One, you're not a tree, so you can get up and leave anytime you want. If you don't enjoy it, don't do it. And two, that, you know, you can be and do anything you want to do if you want to do it bad enough. If you want something bad enough, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse. There's no if, ins or butts about it. People will tell you whatever they want to tell you, but you make your life, your choices, your decisions. You are a product of those. And that honestly was why when people finally convinced me to write the book, you know, I wanted to, the original title, like I told you before, was how to take shit and make shoe polish and other life lessons I learned from wrestling. And one of the, I've learned a lot of stuff, and I've become the person I've become because of the experiences I've had. Some of them you can only experience in wrestling. But every time it made me understand that, you know,

the one thing about life is that it's relentless. It always moves. It always goes forward. You know, the tragedy will happen. Things will, you know, bad things will occur. And guess what? Tomorrow the sun comes up and you've got to figure a way to pick yourself up and go. You know, you can't lay in the mud and just go, well, I can't, you know, I can't do it.

There is no can't. You've got to figure out a way to go and move forward and literally take shit and make shoe polish. I mean, that's at the end of the day. That's what it is. You know, and you can, I know everybody tells you that. You know, you hear all the gurus, you know, but you can make your life whatever you want to make it. You know, and you only get treated the way you are willing to be allowed to be treated. And that's the truth.

You know, you complain about your job and you complain about the how you treat you. That's because you're staying there and you're allowing them to treat you that way. You can make a choice and you can go somewhere else. Well, I can't find a job. Oh, you can find a job. If you start looking at some point, you'll find a job. Will you move laterally? Will it income-wise won't be any better?

It might not be any better. Well, situationally, will it be any better? You never know until you try. But if you keep staying, you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting when you're getting, and that is the definition of insanity. Oh, the message is simple, and it's that life isn't about what happens to us. Life is about how we respond to what happens to us, you know?

That's so good. Like, adversity is going to happen to everybody. And to me, the most successful people that I know that I encounter every day are people that respond well to adversity. They don't look at adversity in terms of like a self-pity kind of perspective, which is why is this happening to me. Although there may be elements of that in the beginning. It's all about, okay, this is happening to me. Now, what am I going to do about it from a constructive point? And so to me, I try to carry that message to kids because honestly, I think the biggest handicap you can have is looking at yourself as a victim.

And I see a lot of kids these days. And when we were kids too, the same thing. Disenfranchised kids, you know, like why did this happen? Why'd that happen? It's everybody else's fault, not my own fault, you know. But to me, that's a bigger handicap than even missing a limb. The story you tell yourself is everything. This is part of the book.

And if I would have had all of this, all of this story would have been in the book. But I'd already written this part. And I said, I'm going to give you a quote. I'm going to give it to you. And when I tell you to quote, I'm going to ask you who said it. So here's the quote. The repetitions of affirmations leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

Let's break that down. The repetitions of affirmation, that can be good or that can be bad. Most people talk shit about themselves. Oh, I'm no good. A lot of people think they're worthless. I don't deserve this. Oh my God. Like, let's talk about the whole thing.

Me personally. Before I went out there, do you think I was going, oh, my God, I'm so nervous. What if they don't like me? What if I'm not? What if it doesn't work? What if I forget what I was going to say? No, fuck no. I'm saying this is going to be the best thing I've ever done.

I'm going to blow people away. I'm going to make them laugh. I'm going to make them cry. I'm going to inspire them to believe in them. And that's what I kept saying over and over and over and over and over again. while I'm talking to my four daughters, and Rachel's like, well, what if I trippled the way out there? I'm like, honey, you're going to be fine.

Listening to Bischoff's speech, the inductive speech, unbelievable, the work he put into that. And I know that most of it all came from his heart, you know, so it was super special for me. But that voice is still happening. It's going to be the best thing I've ever done. I went out there was the best thing I've ever done. That's a positive affirmations. The repetition of affirmations leads to belief, and once that belief becomes a deep, conviction, things begin to happen. Who said that? You? No. It sounds like Tony Robbins.

No. Now I'm going to tell you what his affirmation is, like what he said over and over and over and over again. Now what's the odds of you knowing that? You don't know even said the quote. What's the odds of you knowing his affirmation? A billion to one? Sure. Here's what he said. I am the greatest. I am the greatest of all time. Who said that? Muhammad Ali. How do you know that? Number one, a very good impression. And number two, he lived it.

He lived it. He said it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Well, talking about you, Dad, what's the best advice that he gave you for the business? He gave me a lot. I mean, every day it was him was kind of like a motivational chit-chat because that's how he spoke. he spoke in that almost like a preacher whenever you talk to him. There's always something. I think the thing that inspired, like, that he said that always stuck with me was maximize your minutes.

And I don't know. There's so many things he said, but when he used to say maximize your minutes, it was because at the time at WW wasn't getting a lot of air time. I wasn't always, you know, the one with his hand raised at the end. And he believed it didn't matter. You could still do something that made somebody go, oh, I really like that guy or, you know, little kids that really liked Star Dust. I think about that a lot because I have the opportunity to have a lot of minutes when it comes to Ringham Honor. And I think about, well, now that you got them, don't blow it.

You know what I'm saying? You told the world, I'm better than you saw. Go show them. Otherwise, you have no one to blame but yourself. And I would have no one to blame but myself. And I think about that a lot. voice in my head in every match. Maximize your minutes. Hit your finish. Just the little things. He always would say, don't chew when fake gum, because I was notorious for pretending I had

gum, just little stuff. He's always with me. I just believe in just doing my thing and putting out a good message and trying to help people. Like I said, and I like Tony Robbins. I like Tony Robbins. He just helps people. He's himself. He's done well for himself. Gary Vaynerchuk, not Tony Robbins. but he's Gary Vaynerchuk. He says, fuck you all the time and I love him. I love you, Gary. And that's it.

I'm kind of a blend of all that. I feel so I just, and for me, and that's what I've just, with social media and my podcast, I was like, I'm just going to be me. And that's my best advice for people,

just be yourself. And people will love you or hate you, but at least they will love or hate you for you being you and not being fake. I say this a lot and I don't mean to, but it's true. Follow your dreams. Anything and everything truly is possible.

If there's something, that you want badly enough, you can get it. You just have to put everything into going after it. So I encourage everyone out there to do it. You're doing it. I did it. I mean. You're still doing it.

It's possible. And what I wanted to do was just impossible, kind of. And I did it. Because I wanted it and I made it happen. So try. If there's something you want, don't talk about it. Do it. Well, there you go.

And man, I think. feel so inspired. Just listening to that and having all of those great pieces of advice all together in one place. Such good stuff. Yeah. It makes sense that every single one of those people are so incredibly successful with everything that they do, not just wrestling, DDP with building his business with DDPY, the Rock being, you know, the most successful actor in the world. Everything these people do, you know, there's a formula here. And Tony Robbins said it best. He said, success leaves clues. And I think there's more than a few clues in there. So tweet me, send me a message on Instagram. Let me know which piece of advice spoke to you the most. You know, DDP liked this so much

that he actually clipped this and shared it on his Instagram IGTV. So a big thank you to Dallas for helping to get that word out there because there is just so much good stuff in here. Thank you for listening to it. I hope this inspires you to, you know, whatever your face is. facing in your life personally or professionally. I hope that this lets you just walk up to it and just absolutely crush it and go through it and then beyond, you know, go on to the next level of whatever it happens to be. So I hope you enjoyed the mini episode, the mini app. Please share it with someone who you think might need this in their life today.

So I appreciate you being with me on this one. And we will see you on Thursday for a kick-ass interview. We'll see you then. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today.

No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it. But get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef?

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