Next Level Pros - #61: From Bankruptcy to 9 Figure Exits: My Time On The Bridging The Gap Podcast

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

For this weeks episode of The Founder Podcast I join Bridger Rodgers on her show, Bridging The Gap! This episode features an inspiring interview where Chris shares his story of filing for bankruptcy at a young age with $2.2 million in debt, and how he was able to bounce back from that low point. He discusses the lessons he learned around living for external validation versus his own goals. Chris also details how he grew his solar installation company Soldier Energy to $233 million in annual revenue and a $100 million acquisition, becoming one of the fastest growing companies in the US. Listeners will learn Chris's insights on skills like sales, marketing, team building and culture that he attributes to his success. It's an empowering story of perseverance and what it takes to scale a business to nine-figure exits! Highlights: "I stopped caring about what other people thought., it's been a gradual process. It wasn't all at once. But, you know, early in my career, I was doing things to like, look at me, business owner, drive the nice car, have the nice this or that or whatever, create the facade of success rather than being a successful person." "I want to be the highest priced in any industry I ever operating from, there's really only two ways that you can operate an industry either you got to be the cheapest, you got to do a make a sliver of profits across large scale billions and billions of dollars, or you got to be the most expensive otherwise, you're screwing yourself." "As a business owner, you have to understand sales, and I'm not talking retail sales, I'm talking high ticket getting being able to identify pain, create a motion, and close based off of a gap of pain and a solution that you provide." Timestamps: 00:00: Introduction 05:01: Growing Up 10:11: Overcoming Bankruptcy 15:31: Skill Development 20:09: Building Winning Culture 24:16: Leadership 35:51: Partnership 45:08: Mentorship 54:30: Building A Business Live Links: 🚀 Join my community - Founder Acceleration https://www.founderacceleration.com 🤯 Apply for our next Mastermind https://www.thefoundermastermind.com ⛳️ Golf with Chris https://www.golfwithchris.com 🎤 Watch my latest Podcast Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-founder-podcast/id1687030281 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1e0cL2vI1JAtQrojSOA7D2?si=dc252f8540ee4b05 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@thefounderspodcast

I mean first and foremost is sales. If you don't understand sales and marketing you're not going to be able to push. I mean I've already hit on that once but I'll continue to pound that home. Like as a business owner you have to understand sales and I'm not talking retail sales. I'm talking high ticket getting being able to identify pain, create emotion, and close based off of a gap of pain and a solution that you provide. All right, welcome back to another Bridging the Gap podcast. I'm your host, Bridger Rogers. And today, we go deep into the story of Mr. Chris Lee. Chris, welcome to the podcast. Excited to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to this episode specifically because when I started to dive

into your backstory and hearing how you've had two, is it two nine-figure exits? Is that right? That's correct. Yep. That's incredible, man. So he has one of the fastest growing companies. And we'll dive into that story and how he scaled that. Now he's working on something he's super passionate about. He's going to talk to you guys here on the show called the founder project in like 60 seconds or less. What is the founder project and how can someone get involved? Yeah, you bet. So basically we work directly with founders, whether it's entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs,

guys that are building and scaling their businesses, trying to exit their business. And so we take all the life skills and the lessons that we've learned and we, on the very back end, we consult for equity. On the front end, we have communities that meet together three times a month virtually where we hold accountability and have a new book that's coming out that That's a pretty exciting, the founder's core that should be released, uh, and a Q1 this, this next year. And then, uh, yeah, just a bunch of other really cool things in person masterminds that, uh, we, we gather some of the brightest minds in the world and put them together and do some really cool things. Let's go. Well, I'm really looking forward to jumping into your story. So how long or what, what, at what age did you start your first business?

Cause I know like a lot of entrepreneurs get started. Like, you know, I love studying like some of the billionaires like Mark Cuban. He literally started knocking door to door when he's like 10 years old. So for you, when did you get your start in entrepreneurship and when did you realize you had a passion for building companies and businesses? Yeah. So I started my first business when I was 24 years old. That was in 2008.

And prior to that, I had been involved in door-to-door sales, selling products. And so I believe sales is like the seed of entrepreneurship. And so first of all, in order to build a company, you have to understand sales.

And second of all, if you understand sales, you order to build a company, you have to understand sales. And second of all, if you understand sales, you want to build a company. So that's why sales is really the seedling of the whole space or those that go in and are successful at creating value. And so for me, getting involved in sales at an early age was very imperative. I had my first job when i was nine years old uh at the age of 12 i was providing for everything but underwear and food on the table uh my home i grew up in a in a middle class home my dad was a school teacher my mom was a stay-at-home mom seven kids so we didn't have a lot of money and uh we were, a lot was expected of us. And so, uh, did that from, uh, I started

delivering newspapers at the age of nine and, and, uh, basically waking up 365 days a year at 5 AM and doing that until I left, left, uh, from, from my house at age 18 or age 19 is when I, when I left the home. Um, and so that's just kind of where it all started, but where I first got into sales was I was 18. I was attending a local community college in what's called a running star program. I was still in high school, but attending college. And, and, uh, there was a little advertisement that said, make at least $13 an hour. And, and the, at least caught my eye 13 bucks an hour at that point was, was a lot of money. Um, you know, it was way more, I think, um, my jobs at that point were paying me seven and a quarter or something.

Uh, and, and I was working like three different jobs. And so this at least really caught my eye and it was selling Cutco, selling knives. And, and, uh, you know, I was able to go into a farmer's wife's house, walk out with a check of a thousand bucks, making a 25% commission in, in an hour's time, I could make 250 bucks. And like, that's when I really started to understand the value of creating value rather than just trading my time for money. And so that's where the seed began. And then I was a missionary for my church for two years, worked for free. No, I didn't have a job, taught the gospel of Jesus Christ, served people for two years, paid to be there, and really taught me valuable work ethic and a skill set that was not rewarded with cash, which is probably the best thing you can do as a young entrepreneur.

Most people want to try to go make as much money as possible and foregoing the skill set to do so. I love that. set to do so. And so, so for me, developing skills from an early age were, were very imperative and, and really set me up for success. But first business launched at 24, by the age of 27, I was filing bankruptcy for 2.2 million, had my car repoed, lost everything. And, uh, you know, so, you know, fast forward, I've launched 16 or 17 different businesses over my career. You know, some of them have been OK. Some of them have been flat out failures. Other ones are just break even. So I shut them down and I and I've had two that really popped off and did really well. So, you know, most recent being launching out of my garage, uh,

Solge Empower in 2017. And, uh, we grew that to from $0 in revenue a year to my last year running that business, we did $233 million in revenue that year. And, uh, and so, you know, it was the sixth fastest growing company in 2021 of any privately held company in the nation, according to Financial Times. And the 12th fastest growing, according to Inc. 5000. And, you know, and those are all legitimate verified numbers based off of, you know, they do a heavy financial audit for all those awards. Um, but, uh, but yeah, it was, it, you know, growing a, growing a business to, you know, nearly 1300 employees, uh, did over a hundred million dollar acquisition, uh, earlier this year where we acquired another business, um, ended up stepping down as the CEO in April, uh, now, uh, uh, you know, finding new passion and building other things.

Dude, this is, you just dropped like a nuclear bomb. I feel like there's so much to break apart. I'm excited to jump into this. So the first thing that I think is really inspiring to hear is you went from bottom of the barrel, bankrupt. You actually filed, did you, so you actually filed, is it section 11? No, chapter, chapter seven, chapter 11, chapter 11 is the nice one. You, you don't, uh, you actually work out a payment plan. Chapter seven is, uh, you know, a black eye on your, on your record for 10 years. Uh, and, uh, so yeah, that was January of 2011. Wow. Um, yeah, Yeah. Car repoed. I just had my third child.

Me and my wife had been married for, at this point, six years. Less than $1,000 in our bank account. Yeah. That's where we were at. What were you feeling in that moment? Can you take me back to the specific moment you got the letter? What's it like going bankrupt? Because I know I've been in debt. I've, I've, you know, paid my rent and I've had $32 in my bank account, but what's the, what, where, where did this, this event take

place and what were the emotions that you were, uh, over overtaken by when this happened? Yeah. I mean, first of all, it's not just like an event, right? It's a process. Um, you know, I began the, the filing of bankruptcy in October of 2010. So it was about a three month process to actually file. And then another four months after that, before it was discharged. Um, and essentially, I mean, leading up to that, it's, it's all the negatives. It's the, the bill collector collectors calling every single day, 20 times a day. Um, you know, we had, um, we had debt to people that we owed on equipment and credit cards and all kinds of things. And obviously there's a whole backstory that leads up to that. It wasn't just like one day, uh, we stopped paying our bills. It, it, it was like, uh, different economic

crashes, poor decisions on my end, uh, bad partnerships, uh, trying to impress people rather than take ownership of, of things that, uh, that were actually happening in my life. Um, you know, uh, embezzlement, all kinds of, all kinds of things that, that, uh, that led, that led to the collectors. I mean, uh, maxing out my personal credit cards with a friend's company. So he, he would give me the money, less the fees to be able to make payroll. Um, you know, like, uh, that, that type, that type of thing. And so, and then once all the resources were completely milked and there was no way out and there was no light at the end of the tunnel and I didn't see a clear path out, uh, ultimately making the decision that like, man, I gotta call, I gotta cry uncle in this situation.

And so, um, you know, how to, I wish, I wish I could, one regret I do have was, is actually filing bankruptcy. I wish I could go back knowing what I know now. Um, I could have figured out a way. Um, there's really almost always a solution out. Um, you know, most, I've had several people that have listened to my podcast and heard me say the same exact thing and have chosen not to file bankruptcy because of it. And, and a lot of

people said that, you know, they found hope and they found out a path and cause there's almost always a way out besides bankruptcy. At that point in my life, $2.2 million was just too much weight to bear. And I had no clear path to be able to make that, to pay that out. And, and so, yeah, like I did what I did. I don't really re I don't regret it because I love the experience that I've had because of it. Um, but if I were to do it again, I wouldn't, um, because yeah, because it was, it was a black eye that I had to live out. And to this day, I still have the black eye from the standpoint of if I ever, if I ever go get any financing or anything, the question is always asked, have you ever filed bankruptcy? It's not, is bankruptcy on your record?

Have you filed bankruptcy in the last three to five years? No, it's have you ever? And so every single time I have to answer yes, and I have to give an explanation why and how I handled it and how I made, you know, whatever. And, and so, um, you know, it led, led to me not being able to invest in real estate for quite some time or having to get super creative with real estate financing because banks want to touch me with a 10, 10 foot pole. But, uh, but yeah, so, I mean, it was, it was a very negative experience, but at the same time, the biggest lesson I learned was it wasn't as bad as what I thought it would be.

Um, uh, cause most guys, when they're considering starting a business or scaling a business or growing or taking the next step, we imagine the worst case scenario. We imagine what happens if this doesn't work out. And we imagine like X, Y, and Z. It's like living in my in-laws basement, no money, can't put food on the table. Like all these things, like this big monster. The reality is, is that's not what it was. I wasn't living in my in-laws basement. I still could put food on the table. I still had my skillsets. I still had everything that was important to me. I had my God, I had my family, I had everything that was, and I had all the lessons that I learned. And the one thing I

didn't have was money and that now that was fine. And so, um, yeah, just, and so because of it, I'm willing to go to zero. Like you can take all my assets today and I'd be fine. Wow. And within three years, I'd be right back where I'm at to go to zero. Like you can take all my assets today and I'd be fine. And within three years, I'd be right back where I'm at right now. Wow. That's so powerful. And so realizing that, that taking the chance and betting on yourself is not as bad as it was. What else do you feel like, you know, you've taken away that you feel like you could pass on to some of the younger guys, maybe they're not in bankruptcy, but maybe they're just in an overwhelming amount of debt that feels like they're not considering bankruptcy, but they feel bankrupt spiritually, emotionally, physically, financially. Someone's bankrupt. You didn't stay there. A lot of people stay there.

Now you sold two nine-figure companies. How'd you do it? How'd you bounce back? I mean, I, I took the lessons learned from it. The biggest lessons were like, I got to stop living my life to try to impress other people. Like for, for me, life isn't a competition. It's me versus me. It's becoming the best version of myself. And I stopped caring about what other people thought. And now that wasn't like, it's been a gradual process. It wasn't all at once, but you know, early in my career, I was doing things to like, look at me, business owner, drive the nice car, have the nice this or that or whatever, create the facade of success rather than being a successful person. And so, um, stopping to doing, stop doing things that, like I said, that, uh, to impress other people, whether that was my offer

to my customers or what I was paying my, uh, my employees or whatnot, like focusing on what's best for my business, what's best for me, what's best for me and my family. And so, you know, like when we launched Solgen out of my garage, we only spent money on things that would get us an ROI. We operated, our national headquarters was out of my, what I call my garage. It was my shop. I have a 3,500 square foot shop. Um, but, uh, we, we operated out of there for two and a half years. And the reason is because that part of our business was not important to making money. It, you know, our marketing was important. Our, our branding was important. Our investment into the business was important, but impressing others was not, you know, from the standpoint

of my friends and family. And so most young entrepreneurs aren't successful because they robbed the asset that they are building to fulfill their own self-interest. Meaning, you know, they buy the car, the house the the watch the everything else the second they start turning a profit because they want to tell everybody how successful they are rather than taking those dollars compounding them into the business scaling up the things that mean the most and so that that is like the biggest thing i tell people is like figure out whatever your lifestyle needs to be,

maintain it there and don't let it escalate with the amount of money you're making. Take all the dollars that you're making, continue to reinvest in yourself, in your business over and over and over again until one day, like you have so much that it's impossible to spend everything that's coming in. Wow. That's a lot to unpack. So what were some, I'm just curious, like, if you don't mind sharing some of the big splurges or biggest financial mistakes you made during that time that you would say compounded and attributed to the bankruptcy, what were they? I mean, there wasn't crazy financial. Like I bought a car. I've never been a car guy yet. I bought, you know, a Mercedes CLS 500. I didn't need that car, but I got it to like show people, Hey, look at me. I'm the CEO. You know, I bought, I bought a house at the age of

24 because I wanted, actually I was 23 when I bought that house. And, you know, because I wanted to prove to the world, like, look at me, I make financial good decisions. I own a house at a super young age, right? Like it was all just to impress. And, and, but the, the most, the biggest thing was like my offer, like I was charging my customers less than the competitors and paying my people more than the competitors, just to look good to my people and to look good to my end user. And so driving down my margins, which didn't serve me or my people in any way. And so for me, I now have the mentality of like, I want to be the highest priced in any industry I ever operate in. There's really only two ways

that you can operate in an industry. You either got to be the cheapest and you got to do a, make a sliver of profits across large scale, billions and billions of dollars, or you got to be the most expensive. Otherwise you're screwing yourself. And so, um, like those are, those are key takeaways that I took from that business. Hmm. Well, that's powerful. Uh, when you say, you you say being the most expensive, as a business owner, and you're trying to decide between that, I've also seen, and I'd be curious your opinion, best bang for your buck. I feel like there's also that middle of the line, right? Where it's like, is there a fallacy. It's a fallacy. So then I charge 1k, 3k, 5k, depending on which package you buy for my coaching. So if I want to be the highest priced, right? My other, I've got competitors that charge 10k. I've got competitors that charge, you know, 6,800. So what would you advise if I'm teaching like sales training? First of all, first of all, don't, don't look at your competitors, right? I don't care. I don't care what anybody else is charging. Because my competitors are not me. If I'm trying to position my product, my service against anybody else, I do not believe in the world and there's only one Solgen Power in the world. And what we offer, although it may be a similar type of product, cannot be duplicated in the experience that we provide to our customers.

So because of that, we are going to position ourselves in a way that makes the most sense for Solgen or makes the most sense for Chris Lee. And so if I can justify charging twice as much as my nearest competitor, because I believe that I can put together so much value in that I differentiate myself that much between anybody else, then so be it. And so like the comparison game is what sinks entrepreneurs because they don't truly believe in their own uniqueness. I love that. So what, so if you're comparing, what are you comparing yourself to then if it's not competitors? So I'd be comparing myself to Bridger. And then would I also be like looking at the market? Cause one of the things I've noticed is that figuring out what the market's willing to pay is important. For sure. And, and sure. And the way you test that is you put the offer out into the world.

And if they buy it, then great. If they don't, then you've got to either one, position your offer differently, sell it better or improve your product. Right. And that really has nothing to do with what the competitor is doing. Sure, you can look at them for guide or whatever else, but like at the end of the day, you've got to be able to position your offer. That's so distinct and different from anybody in the different that they can net. There can never

be an apples to apples comparison. You want them to always be comparing apples to oranges. Category of one. I love that. And you talked about something earlier that I want to loop back to for a second, which is skills, right? Taking your money that you generate in your business, reinvesting it back into the business, back into yourself to develop skills. What are some of those high income or high value skills that you directly attribute to your nine figure exits? I mean, first and foremost is sales. If you don't understand sales and marketing, you're not going to be able to push. I mean, I've already hit on that once, but I'll continue to pound that home. Like as a business owner, you have to understand sales, create emotion and close based off of a gap of pain and a solution that you provide. And, and you, and you've got to be able to do that at, at length.

You got to be able to train that at length. You got to be able to recruit. So sales and recruiting are one in the same. You recruit the same way that you sell. And so you're going to be able to attract in these high talents. Marketing is super imperative. No matter how good you're at sales, if you have nobody to get in front of, then it doesn't matter. Right. And luckily there's guerrilla type marketing where you can go door to door, which much of my background is door to door sales and in which you just go and you grind and you and you and you and you capture attention by just getting in front of people.

Or there's paid advertising in which you master paying and hooking in attention. And so for me, like those are those are the most imperative. And then secondary is is team building and culture creation. And so in order to scale, you got to understand how to attract great talent, which goes back to sales. You have to be able to be willing to be the dumbest person in the room, which is the core of team building, right. Being able to hand off and give up control to incredible, successful, highly talented individuals. And then you have to know how to

push the energy in the room, which is culture. And so, you know, I, I actually have a thing that I, I sell. It's a, it's a culture guide for founders. If you go to my Instagram, there's a little link. It's the top thing. It's 29 bucks. It's 36 page ebook bolted 10 step process of how to create incredible culture. I'd say that's like the number one thing that separates Chris Lee from the rest of the world is that I create winning cultures where people come more than for just a paycheck. They come to become the best version of themselves. And there's like a detailed way that I create that, that I've studied and spent over a million dollars on my own personal education to be able to do so.

And so, you know, there was a point in my career between bankruptcy and starting Solgen. So like I said, I started and founded other businesses, but there was a four and a half year period where I went back to work for other people. And I called it my paid education, where I went and I worked as a high level executive for these mentors that were making a lot of money and scaling a lot of products and services and teams and every, everything else in the space that I wanted to be involved in. And I studied them. And so I got paid to study them. And, and, uh, you know, I analyzed what they were doing to create incredible culture, how they were motivating teams, what their,

what their offer was, what their structure was, how, structure was, basically all the secrets behind it. And so from there, took those lessons and applied it into building Solgen so that from day one, Solgen was built by design, not by default. I love that. Give us some of those tactical steps for creating culture. Even if we're our own sales rep in another company, I've even came into companies and created my own culture, right? Like I'm recruiting people who can go be my appointment setters. So what are some action steps that myself or people watching can take to start to create an intentional culture and not, you know, just fall into the default of the way things are. Yep. First and foremost, as the, as the CEO, the chief energy officer, or the chief visionary officer is you have to have a vision that other people can buy into and they don't, uh, they don't need to believe what you're selling, right? Like what, whatever it is. Like, for example, when I, when I launched out of my garage, I would tell people the six people sitting in my 400 square foot little, little shop, I'd say, Hey, in five years, we're going to be the largest solar installer in the nation. And, you know, of course, every one of them looked at me like I was crazy. But I believed it so much that I was an evangelist.

An evangelist doesn't get other people to believe that you're going to be the largest solar installer in the nation. They get these people to believe that they believe. Right. And so meaning my goal was not for them to believe that it was them to believe so much that I believed it, right? Like, like, holy smokes. I don't know how he's so convicted on this. I don't know how he has such great vision or whatnot, but man, I believe that he really does believe this. He really does see this. He really knows the direction that we're going. And so you have to convey a vision like that. And so one, one, you've got to have a clear vision, a clear vision of exactly where you're going. And then a game plan on how you're

going to do that. It can't just be high as a kite in the, in the air, like, Hey, we're going to go build this. He's got to be like, Hey, we're going to build this. And this is how, this is how we're going to, this year, we're going to do this this year. We're going to do that this year. We're going to do that. This is what the org chart looks like. This is how we're going to, this year we're going to do this, this year we're going to do that, this year we're going to do that. This is what the org chart looks like. This is how we're going to build out the team. In order to do that, we need to recruit and develop and market this much and spend this much on marketing and whatever. And so it's like a clear, concise plan to get to your crazy vision is the first and foremost thing that you have to have. So you have to have a vision.

You have to have a mission behind the vision, which is your mission statement. Most companies have some sort of a mission statement, but they don't really believe it. They don't really buy into it. They don't really sell it to their people. Like for example, at Solgen, the mission statement was building a brighter future for our people. And it's got to be industry agnostic meaning meaning that it doesn't it can't just apply to one industry it's got to it's got to be above the industry like that particular mission wasn't just solar specific there was obviously a solar aspect brighter future right but building a brighter future for our people was focused on our people who are employees, our first people, and our second people are our end users. So whatever the product, whatever we were selling, we were building a brighter future for our people.

We could shift strategies, right? Maybe one day solar didn't make sense. Politics come out and say, hey, shutting down. We could shift into flooring. We could shift into flooring. We could shift into roofing. We could shift into any product or service, but the mission would remain the same of building a brighter future for our people. And so, and conveying that, and that's a part of, that's worn on your wrist with a wristband that is plastered on every one of your trucks. It's in your taglines of your emails. It's talked about in every one of your meetings. Hey, how are we do, what are we doing to build a brighter future for our people? And more importantly, are the core values that are the subsidiary of the mission statement, right? The core values is getting very clear and concise on what kind of people you want to surround yourself with. For us, there were six core values. And, you know, my culture guide

talks about like how you create core values and how you get clear on all these things. And these are like step one and two that I'm talking about right here. Core values for us was there were six core values. We created an acronym around SoulGen. It was synergy, outside the box thinking, love of family, generosity, excellence, and no excuses. And so with that, we would hire, fire, promote, and recognize all off of core values, right? So if somebody did not exhibit these core values in an interview, and so then you have interviews like, okay, tell me about a time that you displayed a love of family or that you had no excuses in your life and that you took ownership of what was happening in your life. Or tell me about a time that you had a synergistic relationship

or one plus one equal three plus. And so now you have a whole set of interview questions. Now you have a whole set of analyzing people on a quarterly basis. Hey, this is where you're scoring on these different core values. And there's a few non-negotiables in there. If they're not exhibiting there, they're automatically gone. If they are exhibiting them, you're promoting based off of them exhibiting them in an all the time method. And then on top of that, you're recognizing. So like we would do things like once a week as the CEO of a thousand person company, I would send out an email and say, Hey, this week, the focus is on core value. And for no excuses, give me examples from people within your departments that are exhibiting this core value and how they exhibited this particular core value. And so from that, I would get all these entries and then we recognize and we'd get a gift to this one person that was the example of living a no excuse life or an excellent, you know, living the core value of excellence. And then at year end parties,

we'd give big trophies to the one person that exhibited this core value the most within the organization. And so like, that really helps define like, who you are as an organization. And for us, as an organization, we were focused on our people. And so like, becoming the best version of ourselves, we would, we would teach, uh, not only about finances, but we would teach spirituality. We, we would teach, uh, fitness. We, we would teach, uh, things with like associations and relationships with, with, uh, your loved ones at home or whatnot. And so our goal was to always build our people. And, and like, that is one of the many ways that you, that you build like true buy-in, true culture, true. It's, it's a different energy in these, in these type of

organizations when you build that. Oh, dude, you just dropped so many bombs. Guys, listen, if you're not sold yet on grabbing his culture guide, go grab it right now. It's Chris Lee, right? Just Chris Lee. Or what, is there anything specific my instagram is at chrisley qb qb like quarterback okay so lots chris lots chrisley's out there qb is the distinguisher i coached high school quarterbacks for seven years and uh love uh love the quarterback position oh excellent that's awesome yeah guys go grab that it's 27 bucks i spent 27 bucks on a pizza last night. Guys, it's nothing, okay? And it gets you into his world too. You want to connect with this guy.

Trust me. I bring you guys people from all over the world completely for free. The least you can do is get connected with him. So I want you to break apart my mission statement. And because I'm new at this, I want you to kind of break it apart just so that someone listening is like, okay, yeah, mine's similar to Bridger's, but I want to make it better. So our mission statement of Bridging the Gap is to provide the platform for young men to break generational curses, develop unwavering belief, and lead lives of purpose, passion, and abundance. What do you think? Too much.

What can be better? First off, one thing, most mission statements are way too long. A mission statement should be easily memorizable, like within 30 seconds, right? Like you probably already know my mission statement. What was it? Creating a better future, right? A brighter future for people. Yeah. So very close building a brighter future for our people. Right. And so that is something that anybody can memorize super quick. One, it's active. It's not to build a brighter future. It's building. We are doing that. We're in, we are actually doing it right now. Right. And then it's dumbed down to like the very core of what we are, a brighter future.

We want people to go and build off of the core values that they're going to create and build here for the rest of their lives. The future is what we're after. We want everybody to look back and be like, Soljan, that was the best experience that I ever had at any employer. I became a better father, a better mother, a better contributor to society, right? Like, like that, that is something that people can get behind. It gotta be something that you can put on a wristband. It gotta, so what I hear from your

core value or your mission statement is a list of core values, which is great. And so, you know, dissect some of that and put that into your core values and maybe create an acronym around it. So for us, like an acronym is important, uh, that, so we, we took, Hey, what are our mo our main core focuses and how do we create an acronym around soul gen? And, and so, you know, it took a little bit of wordsmithing and different things like that, right? Like no excuses or outside the box thinking, like we like creative thinking, we like different. So, oh, you know, there's kind of a longer sentence there, but, but yeah, so like that, that's what, that's what I would do is, is dumb my, dumb my mission statement down more

and then, then create an acronym in which your core values can, uh, you know, and, and your core values need to be more than just what you create. If you have employees, like if you're starting and you already have employees, get them together and say, okay, what's important to you or who are the best employees and what are some characteristics or attributes that these people portray? And so, um, and then, and then really get, get down to the nitty gritty of what it should be. I love that. So just brainstorm and spit ball and I'll give you one more iteration, simply or dumbing it down for me and see if I'm closer bridging the gap between who you are and who you were born to be. Boom. I love it.

What do you think? Is that closer to the mission statement that I'm at? Yeah. Okay. Chris, one of the things that I struggle with, okay. Cause I'm new and I have a little bit of like perfectionism. I'm just like, I want to get it right. So how, how can someone like myself or someone watching, like who's putting together their personal mission statement or mission statement at their company? How can you know, how did you know when you, when you had it? Like, this is it? Like, did you go through iterations? Did you just have it? Like what, what was the epiphany? So, yeah, man, our, our first mission statement was long and ugly and, and everything else. And then I like, I'm like, dude, this guy, this gotta be more simple. This

gotta be, you know? And so, yeah, it takes, it takes time. It's not perfect every time. And you can make adjustments to it in the future, but the quicker you can get there, the better. Right. And, and so like, for me, it just felt right. Like once, once we finally created it and I heard it, I'm like, yes, that's it. That's, that's the one, like I went through all kinds of iterations. Now the beauty, man, we have so many tools, like, uh, you know, you can take your mission statement, put it in chat gbt and be like make this statement in 10 or less words right and and give me and give me 20 different variations of that boom and then you can word smith from there right like you got 20 different variations take two words from this one two words from this one two words from this one boom that feels right sounds right let's go but i will say what's more important than than it being perfect is that people really people are

perfectly bought in right like that that's that's the most important right like more important than a name more important than a mission statement more important core values is that people love and adore it and like they're they're bought in, like, you know, people get hung up too much on a name. I mean, the world's most valuable company in the world's history is literally called Apple, right? Like who, who would have ever believed that that would be the name of a company that takes over the world? Yeah. So powerful. So our acronym at bridging the gap is Brio, which means to have energetic or, uh, enthusiastic vigor, right? Meaning whatever. So boldness and belief, resiliency, innovation, and then honor. What do you think? Love it. It's great. And, uh, you know,

it really just depends. Like, can you explain? Can everybody in your organization explain what those are? And if they can't, you've got a lot of work to do. Yeah, you got to be training them. Give me a couple lines that you did when you were starting your company to really reinforce the core values. When you do meetings, because I do daily meetings with my sales team. What are ways that I, cause I know you said recognize. So does it start with recognition? Does it start with quizzing them? Like where would you start in all the above? Right?

Like, so when you're, you're doing initial trainings, okay, it's important that everybody understands the core values. Why is it important? Oh, because this is what we stand for. Okay, great. What are they? Boom, boom, boom. Get them to memorize them. And then, and then, and then recognize, recognizing the way. Get them to memorize them and then recognize. Recognize in the way and you got to reinforce and it's got to be consistent. The reason why most people don't establish great cultures is because they're inconsistent. Yeah, they come up with a great idea. They start implementing it.

They do it for two weeks, two months, maybe even six months, and then they stop doing it. And so then what your people say is, well, I guess he didn't believe in that. I guess, I guess that isn't important to him. And so like, you got to consistently, whatever you're going to implement, you better be a hundred percent committed to it. Example, part of my culture is that I give high fives to every single person at the beginning of every single day. And it's dumb, it's little, but we celebrate a win. Good morning. High five. How are you? Good to see you. It was much more difficult to stay committed to when I had 350 people at my headquarters, right? And, you know, obviously I wasn't able to go out to my branches and high five everybody. But when I would go around and high five 350 people every single day, it would take over an hour. You know, I was but I was committed to connecting with my people, to starting with the win, to knowing my people, from them to know that Chris, as the founder, loves me, cares about me, cares about my family. And so like those are because the love of family is one of our core values.

And so and I was committed to it. And, you know, and there are some days that I would come in, I'd be on a phone call and people would be like looking to give me a high five and I'm on a phone call. And like, dude, I would be like, crap, it's already 11 o'clock. I got to go and do my high five rounds, you know? And, and so, um, yeah, just consistency in whatever you're doing. That's so powerful. So I'm hearing a lot of sales, leadership, visionary. One of the things

that I've been studying is, is like rocket fuel, right? Finding that, that integrator combo, right? Have you found, did you find an integrator combo when you started to like start to take off or how did you attract that person and know that that was a good running mate? Yeah. So I've always been a big, big believer in, uh, uh, in business partners. So, um, every, every single business I've ever owned has had a partner, every single one. Um, you know, I am, I am not a solopreneur by any means. And the reason for it is I just enjoy being around people and sharing in success too much. And, and so like, I want as many, I want to bring as many people to the top of the mountain as possible. And so me and my business partner,

we've been doing business on and off together for 19 years. And, uh, he's, uh, you know, one of my, one of my main integrators, obviously I have, uh, you know, other solid people in, in my, in my management team or whatnot. So like, for example, the founder project, there's four different co-founders involved. I'm the CEO. I'm the visionary. But there's three other equity holders that were co-founders in this business. All of them came from my management team of my previous business.

And so we continue to build and grow and develop. But yeah, I firmly believe there's no such thing as perfect people, only perfect couples, perfect teams, and perfect organizations. And the only way that you get there is you have to create balance in your, in your strengths. And you got to find people that compliment your weaknesses because one dictator at the very top is going to run a sinking ship. That's powerful. Right now, I don't have any business partners. I did have a business partner. And I'm, you know, I was new at it. So we were unaligned in our visions.

And as we started to grow, we started to grow apart. And so we just recently parted ways. We're still friends. He's one of my best friends. But our visions and our values are different. And so we started to grow, we started to grow apart. And so we just recently parted ways. We're still friends. He's one of my best friends, but our visions and our values are different. And so we're on different paths. And so, um, describe to me like some of the qualities you looked for, cause I can really relate to a lot of the things you're sharing with me and the way you communicate and you're not, your strengths are similar to my strengths. What were the things you wanted to find in another business partner that, you know, maybe you're weak in?

Yeah. So first and foremost, a business partner can't be know, maybe you're weak in? Yeah. So first and foremost, a business partner can't be a friend first. It's got to be a partner first, friend second. Um, and you know, I just so happened that the guys I work with, I absolutely love, but none of them started as friendships, right? Like all of them started as like these skill sets balance each other the most. And we just so happen to enjoy being around each other, which is, which is awesome. So beginning with the end of mind, understanding that like, like I can have friendships outside

of business, like, you know, a lot, a lot of my best friends, I'm not business partners with, nor would I ever want to be a business partners with because I know it would damage those relationships. And so for me, I need somebody that can, uh, compliment a, my, my high D high I personality. Are you familiar with disc assessment? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm a high I and then high D. Yep. So I'm a high D high I. And so for me, I got to surround myself with S's and C's. And and so my integrator, my integrator actually. So Daryl is his name. He he, to be able to use on a, on a daily management. In fact, we, we offer a disc assessment for free for our group, for anybody that's trying to understand what their disc assessment is, or we use it in our hiring and interviewing process. I'm a big believer that you shouldn't hire anybody into a sales organization that doesn't have a D personality of some sort, whether it's a low D or whatever. And so we utilize that in the hiring process.

So, and I can give you a link that you can drop in the show notes for anybody that wants a free disc assessment. Yeah, that would be sweet. Yeah, send me that link for sure, guys. If you haven't taken a disc assessment, I strongly recommend it. I recently took one as well that maybe goes a little bit more in depth. I'd be curious your thoughts on it.

The Clifton Strengths Finder 2.0. Have you taken that one? I haven't, but I've heard of it, yeah. Okay, cool. What other personality tests have you found that have been effective in judging character or judging skills or tendencies? You know, it's interesting. I, there, there's a lot of ones out there. Uh, you know, the, uh, what's the ones like eight wing nine, my wife loves that one. Um, uh, there's like nine

personalities and there's different wings or or whatnot that that one's i'm trying to trying to remember what the name it starts with an a um my wife loves that one um i i love uh screwing around with like there's there's uh some that like based off of numerology which is based off of like when you were born the exact day and year. And it's surprisingly accurate, which, which is crazy. You know, in that one, I'm a, I'm a leader. And, and yeah, it's surprisingly accurate with almost everybody that I've ever done it with. I love that. So I want to know more about the vision and the mission and the values of your new company, the founder project, because I think this is awesome. Like the fact you're empowering, you know, business owners

is huge. Like that, those are the people that create jobs that build the economy, that drive capitalism in this, in the economy. So like, I'm, I want to know more about it. I know my audience does tell me a little bit more about that if you don't mind. Yeah, for sure. So I tried retirement for about six weeks and it was like the six most miserable weeks of my life. So I'm 39, I'm 39 years old. And, you know, it was just, I got in a tragic car wreck, head on with a drunk driver coming at me 120 miles an hour. And I had two, uh, I, my two sons are two of my three boys with me. And, uh, we walked away from it. That was March of this year. And, you know, uh, glory to God for sure that, uh, that we were watched over and we were able to walk away without a, uh, a bruise. My car was completely destroyed and my son in the back wasn't even wearing a seatbelt and he walked away with a fat lip. It's pretty, it's like, uh, beyond me why, why it even happened. Um, so after, after I decided that man, life is pretty valuable and I want to spend more time with my

kids. I stepped away, stepped in April. I stepped down as the CEO of my business. We had already exited to private equity, but I was running it and I still had some equity in the business. But I tried retirement. I'm like, dude, this is miserable. And I want to be actively creating. I want to do something that one, utilizes my skill set, two, brings me a lot of joy and passion, and three, can be designed around the life that I want to live with my my wife and my kids and never miss another sporting event. Never, never miss, you know, a recital or whatever it may be.

And so with that with that in mind, I launched my podcast where I give out tons of free information. It's called The Founder Podcast. It's ranked, I think yesterday it was ranked number 38 in all of business podcasts. Had some pretty awesome, I think I've shot 60 episodes, had Grant Cardone, Alex Ramosi, a bunch of different guys. I'm good friends with those guys. But yeah, so launched that and then just really designed around building and creating and developing founders because as founders, as entrepreneurs, we're operating with blinders. We only know what we know.

And there's a lot of people that have gone through the same experience that can teach you so much. And so for me, it's getting that information to this population that's out struggling and building a business or learning it for the first time. And so I'm passionate about teaching because I believe that if you want to change the world, you have to change entrepreneurship because entrepreneurs can ultimately guide the world. You look at what Elon Musk is doing for the world. You look at like, I mean, these guys can change the future. And so I'm very passionate about like impacting for centuries to come. And by teaming up with entrepreneurs, educating entrepreneurs, setting them up for the rest of their lives, financially, spiritually, relationships, fitness, like the whole nine, like focusing on that. And so, yeah, man, that's where my passion is just like building people, building teams, building impact. And yeah, super, super driven around it.

That's epic. Yeah. I was looking at your, your podcast the other day and I love how, how you have it set up. How did you, one of the things I get asked a lot, right? Cause I have a lot of high level friends network. How did you build some of those connections with Grant Cardone, Alex Ramosi, and how did you develop those connections? Cause I know a lot of the guys would like to be mentored by them or add value to their life or be in relationship with them. I'd love to hear your story on how you, how you've networked with some of these higher level individuals that we all know and love. Yep. So you only, you only pay or get results with three different types of currencies, time, energy, or money. Right. And so time, a lot of time, man,

I've, I've been networking ever since, uh, I ever heard what the word was, you know, initially I got, I got really frustrated because I'm like, I'm trying to network and it's just like, I don't know anybody. Like, how do I do this networking thing? Right. And networking is just consistently getting out of your comfort zone, putting yourself in a position, uh, of being surrounding yourself. And usually the way that you get in front of people is you gotta, you gotta buy your way in, or you have to earn your way in, right? Like, uh, money or energy. And so, um, you know, I've, I've spent over a million bucks on my personal education. I, uh, I am currently attending a Harvard program. I'm a college dropout, but I attend a, uh, a owners and presidents program at Harvard

business school that has 160 people, 40 of them are billionaires. Um, so I network with just phenomenal people and I spend 50 grand a year to be a part of that. You know, I've spent a ton of money on coaching, a ton of money on masterminds. So I'll give you an example. Alex Ramosi, me and him met in 2019. I spent money to go to this mastermind in, uh, in Utah. He so happened to be there. I knew who he was from click funnels. Uh, you know, he was already building his, his thing in like a gym launch and being pretty successful. Um, we so happened to get into the same car driving up to the mountain. Uh, we, we hit it off right away. Layla was there as well. We spent three days just sitting around the campfire talking, neither of us drink. Uh, so for us, it was like everybody else was drinking and partying and we were sitting

there just masterminding and getting to know each other. And so from there, uh, you know, every event that we would attend, we'd go and do dinner together. Um, he ended up coming up, uh, doing a mastermind at my house, at my lake house. Russell Brunson came to that same mastermind. So it's just like asking, connecting, spending the money to be in the right room, spending the money on coaches because I chose to spend money on my development rather than my perceived assets like the nice watch or the car or whatnot. And so just understanding that this right here, you can take all my money and this and who I know, it can never be taken from me.

And so, you know, so as much as much as possible. And so because of that, man, I've nowed into, you know, some of the craziest rooms. I know a lot of incredible people. You know, one of my best friends from Dubai, he does three and a half billion dollars a year. You know, I know a princess from Saudi Arabia. Like I've met with prime ministers from Africa, you know, just all kinds of crazy stuff. But it's a slow process. Most young guys, they want it now and they want it yesterday.

You know, and the issue is they didn't spend any time, energy or money, right? Like if you want to shortcut time, you got to either put the energy in and develop the skills or spend a crap ton of money that you probably don't have. And so you got to figure out ways to generate more skills, way to generate more money, and way to get in more rooms. And most of that is just getting outside of your comfort zone, asking the right questions, being willing to be vulnerable, and ask for help. I love that. Who are you spending time investing into, and where is the next level for you? Because I feel like the reason I started the podcast is because one of the things I've noticed is that the most successful people on the planet never stop bridging the gap, or at least the ones that I like to study. There's always another level. There's always a gap to be bridged. And so who are you working

towards either acquiring as a valued alliance or relationship or partnership? And if someone wants to connect with you, right, watching this, how can they provide value in either time, energy or money to you? Because I know there's a lot of guys that are like, man, this guy's awesome. I want to connect. How can they do that? So to answer your first question, so like I said, I'm actively involved in this Harvard program right now, which literally puts me in the room with all kinds of billionaires. And so developing a lot of those relationships, like give you another example, like Will.i.am is a part of that group.

You know, like you got like you probably don't know that you're probably too young to know who Will.i.am is. But who is Will.i.am just for the younger guys? Oh, my goodness. You don't know who Will.i.am is. I'm sorry, man. Lead singer of the Black Eyed Peas, like the greatest lyrical artist of all time. He also was the founder of Beats by Dre and sold off that company to Apple for $3.2 billion. Yeah, Will's a genius. He's a good friend of mine.

But yeah, so like that's one thing that I'm actively paying for. The other thing is I'm actively working and speaking on stages to get on bigger and better stages. So like some recent connections that I made, like Tim Grover, who is the personal trainer for Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. He's one of my recent connections. Also made some connections at an event that I spoke out in Atlanta. I got one guy, he goes by him 500. His name's Marcus Barney. He holds an event that has 20,000 live entrepreneurs that come to a stadium that we've recently connected and become good friends. I'm working on speaking on the same stage as Tony Robbins. Like that's kind of where I'm working towards.

So I've been creating different connections in the space, you know, trying to get to know Ed Milet and a few other people a little bit better. Yeah, so those are, so for me, it's just, you know, gaining, gaining influence because I know the more influence I have, the more I can get out with my message of changing the lives of, of humanity. And so that's, that's what important to me, what drives me every day. There's no amount of money that could drive me. It's, it's purely impact value creation, becoming the best version of

Chris. Um, and as far as, you know, where can, where can people find me as we talked about social media at Chris Lee QB, you can direct message me the, the biggest thing. And, uh, Alex Ramosi shared this on my podcast and I agree a thousand percent with him. Like don't message me and ask, what can I do? Yeah. What can I do for you? Because then what you're doing by asking me what you can do for me is creating more work for me. I now have to try to identify what your skill set is. I have to identify what I need and I, and I literally don't want more work, right? The last thing I want is more work. I hire people to take care of work for me. And so the best thing you could do is like, if you have a unique skillset and you, you follow me, you listen to my podcast,

you see my emails, you see my text threads, and there's ways you're like, man, I could improve this guy's email campaign. Or like I could get his presence up on Pinterest. I don't have any activity on Pinterest or I could create a newsletter for him or whatnot, create it and then bring it to me and say, Chris, this is the value that I've created for you. Here you go. No strings attached. Let's go. Someone like that, that's going to impact and I'm going to open up and I'm going to be willing to talk to that person because they identified a need that I had provided value instead of coming and trying to take, take, take most, most people in the, in the space are constantly trying to take. One of the greatest lessons I learned is you got to serve more than you get in return. And if you do that consistently enough, the amount that you receive

back will just be way more than you can handle. That's probably one of the most valuable things that I've heard on my podcast when it comes to attracting and finding great mentors. That's what I found to be successful as well as offering value up and specifically one of my skill sets is sales. So I started closing deals for the mentor that I partnered with before I was even compensated, right? I just started closing deals over the DMS, creating content to promote them. And so you're basically saying, Hey, if you can help me get my message out, make it better, you know, bring me value, then, you know, you're not going to say no to a conversation or, you know, especially over the DMS or email. So that's such great advice. Um great advice. The other thing I would add to that is like add value to somebody that's two steps ahead of you.

Don't, don't shoot for 10 steps ahead of you. Don't shoot for 20. Like if I tried to go to Elon Musk today and said, Elon, Hey, I see you lack this. Here you go. He'd be like, screw you. Right? Like you're, I'm so, I'm so many steps behind Elon that it doesn't matter. Maybe step three or four, but I need to look for somebody that's two steps ahead of me that I can go and serve. And that's really the way to create the value. I love that, man. Well, I know we're coming up on time here. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with the younger guys that are watching this, right?

That are looking to make it, looking to build their business. What else? What other last imparting wisdom would you like to leave with the audience? I mean, the main wisdom I leave with everyone is everybody's journey is different. Don't compare your journey to anybody else. Just keep going. Figure out your own story. Work hard.

You know, don't settle because you thought you should have already been successful by now. And it just, you know, you're not the next, uh, Mark Zuckerberg or whatever else, like who cares? Like, like be committed to the grind, be committed to your journey and go and make the best of it. You get, you only get one shot at it. I love it. All right, guys. I know you enjoyed the podcast. Make sure you go grab Chris's culture guide. You give him a follow on Instagram, send him some love from the bridge and they got gap podcast. I am Bridger Rogers. This is bridging the gap and together we will bridge the gap till next time.