The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Steven Kuhn, CEO of Humble Alpha CEO Program

Episode Date: September 2, 2019

Steven Kuhn, CEO of Humble Alpha CEO Program Steven-kuhn.com

Hi, folks. This is Foss here from thechrisfossshow.com, thechrisfossshow.com. Hey, welcome to the show, folks. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Thanks for being here. You guys are the greatest audience in the world, and if anyone tells you you're not, they're lying to you. Fake news.

Anyway, guys, we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Be sure to give the show great reviews on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, radio, all the different – there's like 20 billion places you can get the chrisfoshow.com on the syndications. So be sure to check those out. You can go to thecvpn.com or chrisfoshpodcast.com. And there's like seven podcasts there. So as well, once again, we have the, of course, not only on The Greatest Show, The Greatest Guests, we have today, Stephen Kuhn. He's a decorated United States Army combat veteran. He's also a speaker and an author.

He's got a forthcoming book coming out soon here. He's also a consultant who helps individuals dramatically improve their quality of life through the consistent, conscious application of honesty, integrity, and transparency. Boy, can we use some, can he help some of our politicians? Stephen and his team help leaders increase and scale their existing influence through the mastering the art of relational capital through HIT, honesty, integrity, and transparency. I don't know why that's associated with violence, but I'm just kidding, Stephen. Stephen's HIT philosophy unleashes your

inner authenticity, increases revenue, and supercharges your mindset to wield influence. Welcome to the show, Stephen. Thank you so much. What an intro. Honor to be here. There you go, man. Honesty, integrity, and transparency. And if there's any age where we need more of this talk to more people, it's now. I agree. It's funny. You mentioned politicians. I actually work with a few in Germany. Good. We need you to come to the United States. But so you've got a forthcoming book, I believe that's coming out in November.

Give us some of your plugs so people can start looking you up on the inner tubes. Sure thing. So the book is coming out. There's nothing on the inner interwebs yet about that, but it's called the humbleble Alpha Leader. It's a five-step program which is designed to take a leader and their senior direct reports from their current level of performance to a high-performing laser-focused team and to living a quality of life

with certainty in everything they do. The certainty part is important because that's where you know he can let go of the how and it just happens. That'll be coming out soon. You'll be able to find everything on my website, steven-coon.com. You can find me on Twitter, steveneccoon, Facebook,

stevencoonofficial. Just put in steven eugene coon, steven coon, you'll find me everywhere. There's two steven coons on the internet that are found, and one of them's a jazz musician. That's not me. That's always tough. steven-coon.com, check it out. I had one client who's the,

uh, he shares the name with the bassist who, from, uh, uh, Jimmy Hendrix. Like, you want to talk about a Google C SEO fight.

That's a, it's a brutal one. Well, I was, oh, there's also another Steven Cohn who's a professor at Georgetown. That's right. Yeah.

And, uh, I got, I literally got invited to a dinner in Munich, uh, one time with this strange woman who met me online or somewhere I think it was a small world, it was an old community

and I went to her house and they thought I was this professor and I was sitting there talking with all of her guests and I'm thinking why am I even invited here I thought she just was hooking up with me and the dinner immediately ended when they found out I wasn't the professor it was crazy, How uncomfortable is that? I get that all the time.

I am competing with somebody else who also has the Chris Voss, and I just picked up a third who's like an SNL writer, producer, director. So I'm ready to shoot myself in the face right now. But, you know, it is what it is. I have more followers than either of them, so I've got that coming for me. But I get their emails and their calls because I own everything chris voss except for chris.com and uh uh yeah so there's that so let's talk more about you you're a speaker you you do all these different products you've got the last goal setting course you do consulting coaching for people i'm looking at

your website you got this really cool graphic of all the different speaking and events you've done and stuff like that. So tell us more about who you are. We can probably talk about the principle here down the road, but give us kind of lay the land of who you are, how you got here, why you got here, why you do what you do. Okay. Well, I think it begs to tell the story of how I got to Europe, which is where I live now. And so I've,

uh, you know, I grew up in Pennsylvania and central Pennsylvania. Well, that explains why you left. Yeah. Wow. That's exactly one of the reasons why.

Yeah. You just left. Wow. Do they even have electricity and radios there? Yeah. Back then they didn't. No. The mobile home was flickering at night.

We had the, no. So I, I left literally 10 days after high school. I joined the army. And when I, when I was in bootcamp, see,

I hated myself in high school. I was, I tried every sport and I was sucked at every single one. I was on her story. You're telling. No, no, no,

no, no, no, no. Close. It could be Pittsburgh. Yeah. It was Pittsburgh actually. No, Stilton. Wasn't it Stilton? I'm not sure. It was Stilton., no, no. Close. It could be. Wasn't that Pittsburgh? Yeah, it was Pittsburgh, actually.

No, Stilton. Wasn't it Stilton? I'm not sure. It was Stilton, yeah. It's like Pittsburgh somewhere. Yeah, but it's almost as if Stilton's like a mini Pittsburgh. I thought you didn't go to NOM. I know you're not ripping off this story.

Didn't go to NOM. Didn't go to NOM, no. Yeah. You're not pulling a Biden on me. No, no, no, no, no. A Biden. No, no. So, you know, I just was horrible at everything I did, and I didn't like myself.

And so I left for the Army thinking that'd be fair. That'll help. Yeah. And when I went to boot camp, you know, I was getting my head shaved. And as I was shaving my head, I decided, okay, this is a new me. I'm not going to go back. So you decided you didn't like yourself. And so you're like, I'm going to go into boot camp

where I have a bunch of sergeants yelling at me about what a, you know, that whole thing from uh from uh oh i can't remember the full metal jacket full metal jacket i'm gonna go there and that will improve my self-esteem was that no what i knew was that i needed uh i needed a break i needed something to break in me to to rebuild something i mean even back then i knew that i needed some some kind of structure support something yeah Yeah. Um, so we had, you know, a childhood,

my mother was, we moved quite often for that way. So very often. And, um, so we never really caught footing anywhere and I was always just trying to follow up. So I decided to go differently.

Well, I joined the army, sent me to Fort Knox. I did well in bootcamp. They sent me to Germany. I ended up in the middle of Germany during the cold war, which was awesome. And it was,

uh, we were on the wall air and stuff. Yes. It was amazing. So we got to stand and watch Yvonne the terrible on the other of Germany during the Cold War, which was awesome. We were on the wall there and stuff. Yes, it was amazing. So we got to stand there and watch Ivan the Terrible on the other side. I thought I was going to end the Cold War, so I was always there intently on the border looking for reasons to tear it down, that kind of stuff. Were you there when Reagan came over and said,

Gorbachev, tear it down? I was, but I wasn't in Berlin when he was there. Oh, wow. So what a lot of people don't realize is West Berlin was an island in the middle of Eastern Germany. Yeah. It wasn't attached to West Germany. So you had to drive or fly over, drive through or fly over about 220 kilometers of Eastern Germany. So that means if you drove, you were searched, they followed you, they checked, you know, you name it.

So, yeah. So either you were stationed there or you didn't really drive that much over there. I was in the West Germany part. I went to Berlin later, but during that time, I didn't. Then I was sent to Iraq for Operation Desert Storm. There, I learned a bunch about myself too and decided it was time to get out. After, you know, I started asking questions about, you know, why we were doing what we were doing, what drove me there, and how I could do what I did, that kind of thing. So I ended up coming back to Germany, getting out, and staying in Germany. And I got out in Germany, and I started out as a doorman at a club. Wow.

And, yeah, well, I was a tank. Yeah, but I was on tanks what else you gonna do in a foreign country couldn't hardly speak the language you're a brawler yeah you're an army brawler i know those guys can back fit man they can get well well we we well you know at night too when you go out drinking this stuff and you know whatever so you know that's some long story well it turned it told me those stories yeah well it got worse because when i was a doorman at a club everyone heard i was i was a combat veteran and i had a bad attitude i'd be you know ptsd to this day but it's better than it was back then no one knew what it was back then this was in 1993

and i just constantly i just fought every night one or two times every single night just just fighting all the time people come up and just want to fight with me yeah and i indulge them american i don't know. No, it wasn't that. It was like, oh, you think you're tough, that kind of thing. And then I got my nose broken twice. I got my face kicked in, detached retina. But you never fall.

You keep going like an idiot. So after that, I had a breakdown. Everything ended. And then I just built myself back up. And I started working in the corporate world, opened up my own cocktail bars, opened up health clubs, opened up my own club, all at the same time. I got my MBA. I got my MBA in the UK.

I'm springing over 10 years here. I got my MBA in the UK while I had the three cocktail bars in a club and was working for the corporation as a European operations director for a British PLC with 87 locations, three and a half thousand employees. And then in 2008, you know, I was doing work with my twin brother in America who is a mortgage. We had a mortgage charter.

Of course, you know, that all crashed. Yeah. I used to own a mortgage company for almost 20 years. There you go. We are using our massive amounts of money we were making from doing the non-docs. I'm sure you know what they are using our massive amounts of money we were making from doing the non-docs.

I'm sure you know what they are. Um, and, uh, we were starting to produce films in Hollywood with our money. Yeah. That's a great way to get right off. That's a great way to lose it all too.

So, uh, get right off. Yeah, I'll get right off. Yeah. That's exactly what we did. Yeah.

So we lost everything and, I lost everything. I was in Germany still. I, and I ended up being homeless in 2008. Wow. So 11 years ago. Yeah.

And so I went to a monastery. After a suicide attempt, I went to a monastery in Austria and spent eight months there and came out the other side as the person I wanted to be. Nice. So since then, you know, been building upon that and just, you know, building upon that um and just you know doing some fantastic amazing things travel the world all you know for about 20 years nine countries a month doing consulting

and i do turnaround so i go in fix a company that's broken make immediate immediate revenue and then work on the the infrastructure structure of the team the culture that kind of stuff to get to get back in shape again that's fun stuff i've I've done that a lot. Now I only do it online. So the last two years I'm only doing it online. There you go. And business exploded. It literally exploded. Because, you know, look, I fly to Spain.

First I've got to have dinner with them, got to have lunch with them, got to go golf, whatever, you know, all that executive, I call it BS, that you've got to do to warm up to the client. Well, when you have a video call, it's even an hour. Look, we get an hour. Great to meet you. Let's get rolling. And then we just knock it out.

And then the intensity, the effectiveness, it's just so much more than going there and waiting and goofing off and have a coffee. Until you do it online yourself, you can't imagine. Because as an executive, you think you have to have your laptop you'd be in the plane 24 7 you gotta be moving around you got to tie on the whole works well that's that's all ended for me and not only have I become a better consultant to this because I have to be more effective but the results are just almost sometimes incredibly hard to believe yeah that's awesome's awesome, man. Because, uh, you know, the thing I loved about becoming, you know, early on, I think it was 2008 when I joined Twitter in 2009, I was on my way to being whatever. Uh, and, um, I loved it because I could start, I could, number one,

I'd always owned brick and mortar companies. So I'd always, um, you you know you had to get an office you had to do the whole bs and um and i never been able to make money online i never thought i would sell like international stuff like to other countries i never thought it would open up of course back in those days you know we had to negotiate like hell just to have u.s long distance lines let alone you know where you can you know now you got sky Skype and you can do all this stuff. And I used to love it because I could wake up from a hangover, be in my underwear on a Skype video. I'm in my underwear now. No, I'm just kidding. And, and, you know, do a consulting call, video, podcast, whatever. No one's any the wiser. And as soon as I get done, I crawl back in bed and be like, but it's crazy. It's, back in bed and be like but it's crazy it's

wonderful you know and it branches out into so many things i mean i have a podcast as well called the hit show obviously hit hit um and i do my consulting online i do coaching online um you know just about anything you know i am doing live events still obviously speaking and things like that that's uh that's something that i can't live without. I love having that impact, but the online, I mean, look, you have no cost of overhead,

no flights, no hotels, no, it's just, it's ridiculous. You can charge less, give better results, you know,

and you know, apply better results in less. I mean, it's just, it's just, it's a no brainer for anyone who tried. And it was hard for me because I didn't know what the hell I was going to do. Literally when,

because I came home and my kids at the time were two and three and they were, started speaking to me coherently. And it was hard for me because I didn't know what the hell I was going to do. Literally, because I came home and my kids at the time were two and three and they started speaking to me coherently. And I was like, whoa, when did that happen? So I told my wife,

I live, yeah, yeah, exactly. I live in Budapest. So I live in Budapest and I know I said Germany, but I moved to Budapest in 2009.

And I told her, I said, I'm not going, I'm not going back. I'm not getting on a plane ever again. I'm done. She's like, well, what are you going to do? I said Germany, but I moved to Budapest in 2009. And I told her, I said, I'm not going back. I'm not getting on a plane ever again. I'm done. She's like, well, what are you going to do? I said, I have no idea. So this is where my veteran status came to play is I went on Facebook and I looked for a veteran group of entrepreneurs.

And there was a group called Vetpreneur. There was about 2,500 people in there. I just went in and started giving free advice on how to, you know, I do a class every single day for about 15 minutes on how to fix a part of your business, run your business, turn your business around, marketing, all that kind of stuff. It caught on really quick. People started calling me to ask them if, if, if I could help them. And within three months I made a hundred K and I was, and I was like, holy shit, this is, this could be a business. And then I did, I turned it into a business and now I do more than veterans obviously but I've taken over that group we now have 13,500 veterans in that group um and I've helped one

on one in the last two years 250 of those veterans actually turn around their business that's awesome man yeah it's very rewarding very rewarding yeah very very rewarding their veterans which is cool yeah the um I'm always disappointed in how we don't support our veterans better and take care of them more. This West Virginia story that's going on right now is, is just breaking my heart. Um, I don't know if you've heard it, but, uh, it's a bit of a segue. Anyway, uh, the, um, so you do team group mentoring, you do a onsite in your office with the team. Of course you try and do it online now, uh, business optimization modules.

One of the things that I used to do back in the day when we had a lot of companies, we started doing loans where we would put in the paper. And I learned this from my friends who were commercial real estate agents or commercial business agents where they would, you know, buy and sell businesses as an agent to other people. But normally just like residential real estate, the people who steal all the best deals are the agents themselves because they have the inside knowledge and they know what's coming on the market. And there's a lot of companies that are cash poor, but asset rich. And so you can clean them out, take them and whatever. And then we were building a lot of companies, but we, we had our management team. We just could not get beyond the two of us with a core third or whatever and running three businesses. We just, we just could not get out of it. So my

friends that were these business guys, they said, you know, what you should do is you run an ad to loan money and you'll shit your pants because they will send you their P&Ls. They'll send you everything that you need to know about their business that they would never give anyone else. And so we'd offer to loan or invest money and you can literally cherry pick through it. And it was a really interesting experience because what I started finding was why entrepreneurs fail. And nine times out of ten, one of the problems I would see is they'd start a business with a mission statement or whatever, and they would run that fucking thing into the ground

until they hit bankruptcy. And only then would they start going, well, maybe we should change this model. Yeah, or ask for help. Yeah, and I would go in. We'd take a look at their businesses and sometimes, you know, I just, you just cherry pick. And so we'd find one that maybe was asset rich or, you know, sometimes they could fold into our companies or other investments, or sometimes

we would see something and be like, I think we can turn that around. And I was really good at that. And so, uh, we'd see it and then I'd go in and they'd be, you know, I'd be like, hey, you know, we'll take you over. But listen, we're going to give you 10 grand, but you got to get the fuck out because you're the problem. So that's it. You got to go. You're the fucking problem. But we'll give you 10 grand. You're going to walk from this.

You're not going to file bankruptcy. Your credit's going to be fine. You're just going to be free to fucking go. You know, five grand, grand ten grand whatever it takes you know sometimes we just look at people and be like dude you're so fucked uh we will just take the business over and let you walk and then we'll just figure out the cash flow from our thing and what's interesting is that nine times out of ten they get really excited well you're on the bus we must be worth something and so i give them a first rider refusal and i say look i'm the first guy you call but do not wait until you're one day away from bankruptcy and fucking call me because i will not bail you out then yeah you

shouldn't do it now they're like no we're gonna try it for a few more months and they keep doing their thing and son of a bitch those guys would always call me day before bankruptcy hey we need that money now we want to We want to do it now. But they would just drive that thing into the ground. And so you probably see that a lot in your... Oh, I do. I do. And you can see it in their messaging. You can see it in their ads.

You can sort of feel it when you talk to them that they're getting more and more desperate. Yeah. So I'm pretty good at reading the signs. So when someone calls me, they're like, yeah, you know, we're looking at a consultant,

you know, playing the high road, right? Kind of thing. We're doing well and everything. And then I start asking them simple questions they can't answer that I know they're not doing well. What's your ROI? What's an ROI?

Oh, what's your gross margin? What's your net margin? You know, how's your cash flow? That kind of stuff. Yeah, you know. And because, you know, if you're scaling a business really, really quick,

you want to look at your gross margin. That's all you're worried about. But if you're in a sustainable business, you want to look at your net margin, you know, And because, you know, if you're scaling a business really, really quick, you want to look at your gross margin. That's all you're worried about. But if you're in a sustainable business, you want to look at your net margin, you know, that kind of stuff. It's just those simple things that if they don't know that, then they don't know where they are at the time. And then you look at the costs. It's just, you know, basically what you're talking about is around the model

of buying companies with no money down, right? Yeah. It's basically saying first right of refusal, the whole works. Yeah, yeah. I have a buddy that does that in South America. He's hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of companies. It's ridiculous. He buys it for no money now.

There's just so many. I mean, we get so many calls and so many needs, and we look at these people and their business models, and we just be like, holy shit. Business models. Well, it's usually not a model. It was like a business something. I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, it was amazing to me. Our first company we built for two thousand dollars uh it lasted 13 years the only reason to end it was because i i moved out of state and just didn't want to deal with the liability of of it was a delivery business so there's a lot of liability with cars and stuff um and then our mortgage company would still be alive today if i hadn't been for the mortgage meltdown. But what was my point about that? The business models, lack of.

Oh, yeah. So our second company, I started with $4,000. Both companies were multimillion dollar companies, and we got profitable really quick because we could reinvest the money. We weren't paying on debt. Right. So I remember one time i interviewed a guy who he got like 150 grand that somehow he got from i don't know where he

fucking got it but you know it was it fell into his lap and uh so he spent he bought the most highest class uh mortgage rent per square foot office in the valley. He had the fucking mirror granite walls. He had them stack this thing so deep. He's like, all the people come work for me because it's so beautiful. He was out of business in a year. Go figure.

Go figure. Most people, there's two mistakes. People have money and they think money will make their business work. Number two is they have a great idea and they don't have any idea how to implement it, so they do it on their own by reading books and whatever instead of asking for help. I always say if you want to go somewhere or be where someone is, then ask them how they got there. Ask somebody who's been there how to get there.

And you'd be surprised. Every person I've ever asked for a little bit of mentorship has said yes. And I'm talking, I've asked people. I mean, I worked for Mick Jagger. I worked for Olivia Newton-John. I worked for Andrea Bocelli. By walking up to them saying, this is what I have to offer. This is what you need. This is why you need it. Let's work together. And that was like my mentor. They paid me to be their mentor. They paid me and they were my mentor. I learned from Mick Jagger. I learned from Olivia, a lot from Olivia actually.

And Andrea Bocelli, I learned so much from his wife, Veronica, who's the manager. Probably. I'm glad I had the manager part because it might've came across wrong. Too bad you weren't working with Mick Jagger back in the studio, 54 days in the 70s.

I probably wouldn't be here if I was. Yeah, but it's, I was actually, it was, that was nine,'t be here if I was. Yeah. That was 1998 when I was with Mick and then Olivia was 2009 and Bocelli was 16, 17. Yeah. She's great. I grew up in the 90s

with her and she had the big songs and the disco era and stuff. She was awesome. And Gre stuff. Yeah. She was awesome. Yeah. And grease. Good physical. But,

uh, yeah, that was a great song. Wasn't it? Um, I think, I think it was a teenager at that time. So that was a great song for me.

I'm like, yeah, who's this? The pick of chicks or, I don't know, R and dates. But, uh,

it's interesting how many people, I mean, you really, until you really see this from the point of view, you and have seen it from the back end with all these different companies, you get to consult and see their P&Ls and what they're doing. And like, I would say to people, what's your burn rate? And they're like, what's a burn rate? And you're like, you're operating the negative and I don't know where your cash flow is coming. But, you know, how soon before you run out?

Because it tells us where, you know, you're going to hit the wall. Yeah, there's something to say about intestinal fortitude to run a business and to drive it hard, but there's also something to say to know when you've got to ask for help. Yeah. You know, and help doesn't always cost. Typically it will. Typically it will, and it should.

You know, I mean, That's why it's there. It's just the pride, especially sometimes in, let's say, the veteran space. I can do this. I was in a war. I can do this. That kind of thing. The hardest part for me is when I talk to people, you know their situation. You know where they are. You know they're in dire needs, but they

won't. They will not get off their horse and say, look, help me. they the horse breaks his legs exactly yeah exactly and it's a shame it's a shame i mean i've literally pushed myself on people like i know where you are brother i know exactly where you are you're not going to be here in about six months if you don't move now yeah how can you know that i used to tell people the same thing when i pay him 10 bucks and give them a first-ride refusal to sign. I'd be like, look, don't be the guy who everybody is who calls me at the last second and activates this.

You should be doing this now from what I'm seeing. The biggest thing they always hated was we would always say, you have to leave the company because you are the problem. You are the thing killing you. You need to go back to McDonald's. That's kind of where you need to go. I've been really ugly to people over the years. If I really determine that they have no business being an entrepreneur, there's some people that they just don't have the brains for it or they just haven't developed the brains for it. I don't know. I just think everyone can learn. Not everyone could be at the highest level, but I think everyone can learn or be taught. But like I said, a lot of people don't want to learn. They want to do it on their

own. And it's not necessarily only ego. It's desperation sometimes. Sometimes it's trying to prove something to themselves or the family or their mother or the internal voice that they have. There's so many different ways. So that's why we work on the, let's say, the interpersonal side as well. Because if we look at this world that we're in, once we realize that every time we're irritated, pissed off, upset to the outside, that's us being upset at our thoughts about what's going on. It's not actually what's going on that's upsetting us. It's our thoughts that are upsetting us.

So when you realize that it's my thoughts that are upsetting me, then I can change those thoughts and I won't be upset anymore. Then you can focus on, on, on reality and what's going on. So that's sort of, that's sort of what I work with a lot, with a lot of people, clients, people. I spend a lot of time pro bono, working with people getting their head straight so they could understand exactly what's going on for real

and that their ego's in the way and that kind of stuff. That's super rewarding personally. And that also gets me, I mean, I had a woman the other day who called me and wants to be a client. And she said, the reason I chose you is because you, you talk a bit about spirituality and about the internal inside out. And you talk about, uh, you know,

quantum physics, but you do it in a business form and you actually proven that it works. So I'm not, she said, you're not woo woo, but you talk a little woo woo. So, yeah. So I thought, I thought it was quite, quite, quite interesting because it's exactly how it is. We sort of, and that's what the Humble Alpha program is, the Humble Alpha leadership program is. It literally helps you find your identity first. Let's face it. How many CEOs do you know that are this powerful CEO,

and you know them as the CEO of – what's his name? He's the CEO of Exxon. What's his name? What's his name? You know what I mean? That's what you're always saying because their identity is not them. Their identity is that position, is is that position is the ceo is the manager is the leader and that means that they're not dominating in their entire life only

dominating in that one space well what we do is we we teach them and we we lead them to their own identity through purpose through certainty and what that does is allow to dominate in any space opening up the doors to just massive amounts of opportunity that you've never seen. I've done it myself. This all comes from my life experience and my partner, Lane Ballone, his experience. So it's a fantastic program where we've already started testing the program. The book's coming out right after that in November. The book will be the program proven. So it's a five-stage program. Anyone can read the book and go through it. And if they want to take the program proven. So it'll be, it's a five-stage program. Anyone can read the book and go through it. And if they want to take the program, they get in contact with us. Off we go.

Awesome sauce. So let's talk about the HIT. Honesty, Integrity, and Transparency Breeds True Authenticity. I love this. Yes, indeed. Well, let me give the definition first of HIT. Honesty is being true to who you are and how you live to yourself first. And transparency is communicating your honesty for anyone to observe, whether it's now how we're talking on video and wherever it is. And integrity is the result of your ongoing reputation. And it's the byproduct of honesty and transparency. So be honest with yourself. You're transparent about who you are and why you are. The result is integrity. is integrity that makes you authentic of course and that word is overused but you can't

be authentic without you know authenticity is is is the result of your actions and who you are and how you are and how you talk and things like that because when you're authentic sorry sorry when you're authentic you can literally dictate your market value i'm sure you've experienced that as well and when you dictate your own market market value, you get opportunities that many people don't get. And that puts you in situations where you can build influence, invest in relational capital, building influence, and so on and so forth. So yeah, that's how that works. In the social media space that I kind of reinvented myself in with Twitter and, you know, I sure I'm on a lot of lists with a lot of

people that are successful in social media and writing books and speaking, things like that. And, uh, uh, some preach authenticity, but I know that personally, you know, that it's a complete farce. Um, and then, uh, there are other people who are completely authentic and largely see-through. I like to think I am. People tell me I am. And I try to be honest and integrity is super important to me. Ethics are a super important thing. And I try as hard as I can to do that.

But I find, you know, I've had some of my social media friends come to me and they go, I don't want people to know certain things about me. And I'm like, well, you really can't be authentic i mean you've got to either open up and and uh show the world who you are or if you're hiding shit well it's not very well there's there's a saying transparency honesty to the degree that every situation dictates yeah so where everyone has a win-win right that doesn't mean you lie. You never lie, of course. I don't talk about my intimate things with my wife sometimes, but not very often, things like that. There are certain things that just don't fit in a conversation.

Now, in today's world, everyone wants you to say something so they could find something on you. That's why people are sort of gearing down and not having this. They're scared to be transparent. In today's world, everyone wants to follow a trend because they're trying to be someone else or through somebody else and they're not living their true life, man. They just don't know who you are. And you look at these people, who are these people? If you live hit, it literally allows you to dig through all those layers and just be who

you are with no fear. And I'll tell you why. Because when you operate from the core principles of hit, you're operating from the inside out. And that means everything that you're doing is based on you, your identity, and your purpose. And nothing on the outside can change that. It doesn't matter what people say. They can try to interject and try to misinterpret. But it doesn't matter because you know it's coming from here.

And just that energy, just that presence of mind to have, you can say what you want. It doesn't even bother me. That right there, that blows away any critics. It just blows them away. They have no chance. It's like hitting a steel wall. And that's a system that I've used from the very beginning. Fortunately, I got trained about ethics.

I took some really good ethics courses being a real estate agent. Every year they put us into an ethics class, and I learned a lot of really cool ethics stuff. And different levels of ethics. And, you know, honesty is a huge thing for me. I grew up with a challenged childhood. And so, honestly, trust is, like, huge for me. You know, being gaslit by someone who lies is, like, that really sets me off,

which makes it hard to live in today's political world. But, honestly, it makes all the difference. And while most of my social media people, they kind of have this veneer, not most, a lot of them have this veneer of like they never share anything beyond a certain wall. I've shared pretty much everything, I think, at this point now. And what's interesting has been the experience of me sharing that people have gone chris is really freaking human this is a really good being of course and by them by them being able to see that there is no veneer in all the different ways that i've exposed myself and and been authentic right people if people can't

really come at me. They can't come at me and be like, you're writing this. Exactly, that's the whole point. Hit doesn't change who you are. It reveals your most authentic version of yourself. I mean, that's the cool thing about it. And when I talk about honesty, the hardest part of honesty is being honest with yourself.

I mean, we lie. People lie all the time. The more you lie, the more you're desensitized to lying, and the more natural it becomes. As a matter of fact, your brain's so wired to either tell the truth or to lie, and our brain gets wired by our actions. So if we tell the truth all the time, that's how our brain's wired. We lie all the time, and I mean to ourselves.

That's how our brain is wired. So naturally, your body wants to be honest. Your body's also adaptive if you continue to lie. So if you lie all the time, and it's just little lies, like, yeah, no, I've never done that, or I don't do this. Next thing you know, you believe it yourself. And then you're really being disingenuous because you're believing what you're saying, and it's not even true. Yeah. My biggest problem is I'm so lazy, I can't remember what I lie about.

So like if my girlfriend goes, you know, wait wait i thought you said you weren't at the bar you were with your friends on friday but now you just said you're the bar i'm like oh shit i forgot my story was with my friends at the bar yeah but what's interesting is my friends who preached and written books on authenticity and haven't been and been busted uh it's pretty bad when they get busted and so um the one of the great benefits of being authentic and open and opening up your life and trying to be as honest and transparent as you possibly can and operate with integrity is you help a lot of other people who are struggling with it.

Like one of the things I opened up about, my dog's death, my death of relatives, I went through about 27 years where no one around me died. And I literally, I got to be honest, I was starting to feel like I was immortal and my dogs are immortal. I mean, I knew we were going to live forever. I wasn't that delusional, but I just felt immortal. And no one died around me that I loved. No one for like 27 years.

I flew with just this wonderful relationship with death. And then one day my dog died of a seizure at 14 years old or something. And I knew it was going to be a seizure. She had them for a few years. I had the warnings. I knew time was coming. But I didn't realize that in one half an hour, we would go through happy moments to she's gone.

I didn't get to say goodbye. And so I bled that out online through my Facebook and Twitter and shared it. And the benefit of that was I didn't realize by being authentic and sharing that pain and that tragedy and the journey through that and after that of healing uh there were so many people that wrote me crying going you know you're bleeding that out online and your emotional response to that uh made me realize that i didn't have closure with my dad's death or my dog's death. I hadn't ever gotten closure and watching you go through that crucifixion of yourself, that helped me. And that's the whole point about honesty.

Honesty is vital to growth. Without honesty, you will never grow. And then you gave the perfect example of how you grew emotionally in that moment and how you helped others grow in that moment. I mean, it's like, it's, it's incredible what honesty can do. People think honesty means I screwed up. Now I have to tell the truth. We're not talking about that. That's called owning your shit. Right. And that's, you know what I mean? That's, that's where integrity comes in.

Integrity doesn't mean you got to be perfect. Integrity means when you're not perfect, you own it. Yeah. And what's nice too, is I've fallen down and admit my mistakes. I've come out about stuff that, uh, happened in my childhood and, uh, and owned it. And it's built this reputation around me where I'm honest or people perceive me as being honest,

integrable and transparent. Um, and, and, uh, I lost my point there. Basically, basically they just go,

you know, Chris makes mistakes. He's not a perfect human being, but the beautiful thing about Chris, he doesn't walk around fucking just go you know chris makes mistakes he's not a perfect human being but the beautiful thing about chris he doesn't walk around fucking think you know acting and thinking like he's the perfect you know like he just came down from the sky for something you know mount whatever yeah but it's because it's because you know who you are and actually honestly motivates us to become the best version of ourselves and once you know the best version of yourselves you don't need to put it out there because people see it. And it's for real. You're

not pretending. And that's the whole thing. By being honest with ourselves, we bring light to the bad and only then can we change it to our best self. And when we change it to our best self, honesty equals reliability because you're always known to be honest. You don't have to explain anything. And it's so incredible. Yeah. My audience and my fan base and, you know, my close, my friends on facebook uh they let me fail because they you know when i fail it's not like oh my god chris failed and it makes the news you know no everyone's like yeah we've seen you know chris falling he's honest about it and he's human and you know i've had people tell me that they hate me they don't like me for either

politics posts that i do or things that i've said or positions i take on culture and stuff i've had people say or sometimes they just maybe they just hate me because they're jealous or whatever but i've had people and we you know i catch them online talking about me sometimes between friends and i've had people just say you know i chris is an idiot but i watch him because you know i want to see he's going to tell me when I watch him because I want to see. He's going to tell me when he hits the wall. I want to see him hit the wall. It's the wall.

We're sticking on honesty again, too. Your whole day is easier. You have less stress, less anxiety, less shame. Stress will decrease performance. I mean, the whole thing. Because when you're lying, like you said, it's a complete distraction. Yeah. And you're holding so much shit back, too. And i mean lying to yourself is what i'm talking about first and foremost you know that's the hardest part to get over because we can always justify well i better do this because

then i have to have that well i have to do this because if i don't then that won't happen yeah so we're always justifying it if we get over that you're it's like cracking a shell and you have like 10 of your day 20 of your day is suddenly freed up. Because you're not worried about what did I say? Who did I say? Who can I talk to? Who can I talk to? That kind of stuff.

Yeah. And it just, it becomes so much freaking work. Like, you know, I've had friends that, you know, between dating or wives or relationships, you know, they're constantly lying to their girlfriend about what they're up to or wife. And I'm just like, dude, do you ever look at all the work that you put in? And, you know, a long time prior to the occupant of the White House, I had two friends and I kind of treated them like mentally challenged people. And I was just like, you know, I'm going to love you for who you are, but you're seriously broken. and i'm just going to try and smile and accept you but they were pathological narcissistic liars uh to the degree that we have in the white house i mean

just like everything and it was interesting to be their friend because i couldn't believe anything they said i mean their their lies were so extraordinary like beyond and but they would get people to believe them but one of their patterns was is they repeat their lies and well of course they do they have to because they have to believe it yeah and they would they would repeat them over and over again ad nauseum until like sometimes i'm like dude just shut up man but other people would buy it but was it they they built lives, the two of them, that were such a card poker stack of just lie stacked upon lie upon lie. And then it would become this complex tree of lies that if you were to ever pull that one card out on the bottom, like the whole thing would just… Yeah, unfortunately, that's how a lot of people live.

But it's out of desperation. It's out of they don't know why. That's what our society sort of teaches us. Some people think it's cool. You've got to be like this. Some people think it's in things. Well, let's look at society. Society teaches that you've got to do this to be that.

You have to do this to be successful. You have to look like this, act like this, buy this, that kind of shit. Don't tell people you really are. Yeah, transparency is cool because transparency is communicating the honesty, right? Like I said. And so be transparent.

People can actually observe your honesty. Yeah. And like you said, not just your words but your actions. And, you know, you have nothing to hide. It's incredible. I mean, the higher level of transparency results in building of trust at rapid speed. People are more apt to help you in your efforts when they trust you because they can see your honesty is actually not just something you say, but it's what you do and how you live. And it also helps everyone around you make better and faster decisions and

allows everyone to connect with you in a more organic way because there's, there's no walls, there's no bad energy. You're not trying to manipulate or leverage. It's incredible. I think our world teaches you to lie. Like when you, when you go in for a job interview,

you put all sorts of stupid stuff on your, in your job interview resume that like whatever and of course it doesn't help the jobs come to you and be like you need to have like really good i don't know there's there's some videos i've seen they're really funny where they do a parody where they're like what does that actually mean that you're requesting and uh you know the hr person is stumped uh our politicians of course we have this open agreement between our politicians that we expect them to lie to us and they lie to us yep and somehow we let that be okay and of course now we've you know somebody went oh really that's the deal let's take that till 10 um the uh you know i you know i've had people say and I kind of grew up in a world where it was like, don't tell people who you really are.

Don't share that personal stuff because that can be no one really wants to know who you are. The vibrations are on the rise, man. The vibrations are on the rise. More and more people are coming to the realization you can't live like that. And if you do, you're carrying everything

on your shoulders. Why? You can live a life of freedom, complete freedom. Believe me, it's happening. I could go into an entire... There's a meeting in India in January with all the Swamis in the Dalai Lama where I'm on a delegation, and it's about a complete form of commerce

that's going to change the world. And not to mention the Humble Alpha Leader Program, which is going to change the face of leadership. I've only touched on it a little bit. We're joint venturing with massive, massive companies, massive personalities to make this real and tangible and not just a book or a program. I mean, there's impact out there that's going to be massive.

In America, something different is happening. People are looking at the leader of the free world and going oh we don't have to pay vendors and we can just rip people off we can cut corners and we can just lie our way to the thing he's actually influencing a whole new attitude in our culture and we're seeing that business we're seeing a lot of ghosting we're seeing um just more like uh you know you you you screw everybody and get mine sort of attitudes. And so it'll be interesting to see how it all comes out. But this is one of the reasons I'm big on this hit thing.

And this is probably going to hit home for a lot of people is you attract what you put out. Yeah. So you get back what you put out. So if I'm looking for that, I'm going to say, oh, these guys are ripping me off. Because I had the same thing. We were doing e-commerce products from Germany to America.

We sold like $30, $40 million worth of product. And of course, we're chasing that money still to this day. And it's because we attracted that. Because we go, oh, we can't trust anybody. Competitive mindset, mistrust, trust, that's a scarcity mindset. Scarcity, I was just going to say. When you have a scarcity mindset, that's what you attract. So when you're abundant, it doesn't matter.

And then you attract. I mean, I work with people.. So when you're abundant, it doesn't matter. And then you attract. I mean, I work with people. I cannot believe how honest and transparent they are with me. And I can't believe how they invite you in to, hey, help us, work with us. Here, take my money. And that's because that's how I live 100% as much as I can. And, of course, we always fall off. Everyone falls off the horse.

But like I said, integrity, when you have it, when you fall off when you fall off the horse you say look okay i fell off the horse i screwed up i fucked up and get back on the horse again let's roll and everyone's cool with that just when you try to hide it well no i i never i only i i puffed but didn't inhale or maybe i didn't inhale you know it just keeps going on i never had sexual relations with that kind of stuff you know so just fess up man own it own it i mean you look at you look at i mean i don't want to get into politics but you you look at the uh and i saw this with my other two friends too that that one lie would just create so much drama and so much problems and if they just would have went for the truth they would have killed it you know a lot of even politicians know that sometimes

you just fess up to it and that kills the story. That kills the thing. You beat it to the deal. But being honest all the time is so easy. I never have to remember anything I lie about. I never have to sit and go like, what was my story last week on that? And I've seen, like I said, I saw my two friends that were just super pathological. Nothing they said was truthful. If they told you that they woke up that morning, you'd be like,

I'm not really sure. Like if they told you, uh, the sun came up today, you're like, I better double check that. That's how much they lied. And they wouldn't feel like stupid lies until like grandiose lies,

just grandiose shit that you would just be like, it's like cognitive cognitive dissonance to the reality because they need to create this fake reality in order to feel you know sort of in a certain way or say you know it's one of the one of the six essential human needs is significance yeah and there's two ways to feel significance one is to put others down and one is to actually do something that no one's ever done and so you see how most people put put people down and they do that also by lying and building themselves up to put other people lower, that kind of thing. But in this world of growing,

this growing world of fakers and distrustful people living by hit, it really allows you to live in the world effortlessly because you shield yourself from that pool of people automatically. They won't even talk to you or they'll shy away or they'll embrace completely what you do and fall at your feet and want you to help them. know i just realized too that came to me uh both of them were ceos and they were using that dissemination to be a leader so that was their leadership uh what's the word i'm looking for their principles core principles and so that was how they were routinely and they would you know they would fill themselves surrounded by these dupes that would actually believe all this bs they would

do i remember one one gal uh who's one of them she she told people that she'd been on seven vogue covers and not even giselle has been on seven vogue covers she might she might have been now but it's like 20 years ago. And the lie was so obvious. I mean, you could Google it and find out. And I think she'd been on it once on Vogue. But the lies were just so crazy expansive. But now it just occurred to me they were using that as a leadership sort of mechanic, method, mantra, whatever. And they were using that to hold power,

which is weird because they own their companies. Like why do you need to hold power if you're the CEO and you own most of the shares of your company? Significance. Again, significance. I mean, there's only six essential human needs. When you realize the six essential human needs are the basis for every single problem in the world.

It makes your decision-making process really, really simple. I think you got a book there, man. Well, you know, the six essential human needs were originally put together by Chloe Madonnas. You know, Tony Robbins uses them too. And the first one is certainty and comfort. So we all need to feel safe, avoid pain, feel comfortable in our environment, in our relationships, right? The second one is Mexican food and spaghetti, right? Right, exactly. The second one is uncertainty and variety, right? So everyone needs some variety in life. Our bodies, our minds, our emotional well-being, requirements for exercise, suspense,

surprise, we need that. That's what I keep telling my wife and girlfriend. And then significance, of course, like I said, we need to feel important and those first three um sorry four i haven't mentioned the fourth one yet it's a personality need so love and connection everyone needs love and connection matter of fact babies die if they don't have it it's true and the last two are needs of the spirit and one is growth we when we stop growing we die we need to constantly develop emotionally intellectually and spiritually we have to anything that you want to remain and you know anything you want to remain in your life whether it's money or your healthy relationship or your happiness or love has to be cultivated unfortunately we use food and sugar to keep growing so that's part of it that's part of it

you know kind of work on growing a different way and then the sixth one is of course contribution to go beyond your own needs and be up to others. Yeah. So they're literally – it's boiled down. When I look at any situation, when I look at any problem with a single human being, I can choose one of those six things. Really? Yeah. Wow. I just learned something on the podcast. Typically – well, look at it.

Look at the list. Look it up. Six essential human needs. And then you're going to say to yourself, the next time someone's acting in a strange way, you're like, what is this person missing? They need some love? They need significance? Maybe they need both. Maybe they just need variety.

They've been sitting on the computer for six days straight. You know, what is it that they need? And when you're in a leadership position and you know these six essential human needs, you can literally walk up to your staff and make them feel fantastic within seconds because you've given them exactly what they need. It's to get over the relationships too. staff and make them feel fantastic within seconds because you've given them exactly what they need. Hmm. Let's get over the relationships too. You can, you can look at your hips, whether being a leader in your business,

your employees, your wife, your, your girlfriend, your mistress, your mistress, and your wife and the other mistress. Um,

whatever works for you kids. Yeah. Uh, no, this is really insightful. I gotta tell you, I'm loving this steven i love the hit i love the um significant thing i'm actually gonna go google

that after the show right after you should be going to steven-coon.com i should plug um but after you go there go you know search for the significance thing but yeah i mean that's gonna maybe that'll help me deal with some of the gaslightings in my world. Just being aware of what gaslighting was, I just became aware of that just a few years ago. I'd always, all my life, I'd been triggered by people who would lie to me. And it wasn't a pretty trigger. Let's put it that way. And so this rage would come out of me, which wasn't healthy for anybody, especially if you were the one who triggered me. And so I really struggled with it.

But now I kind of have a different way to approach it where I can be like, why is this person trying to be significant? But also to look at why you're triggered. Because like I said in the beginning, when we realize that we're only triggered by our own thoughts about what's happening and not what's happening. So why am I reacting that way to that person? Why do I hear this thing and it actually really makes me mad? But when I hear it over here from somebody else, it doesn't affect me at all.

What is the problem here? What's going on inside of me? And often, there's a book. You got to listen to it. Michael Neal, The Inside Out Revolution. It's an audio book. It's like three hours. It's like a deprogramming.

The Inside Out Revolution, Michael Neal. It's incredible. All of my clients, every single one of my clients, it's like mandatory reading. Awesome. Yeah. Michael Neal, N-E-I-L-L, The Inside Out Revolution. And that shows you how you can change your entire world with a decision, with one decision.

Just stop thinking that way. I know it sounds simple, right? It's really difficult. Yeah, knock it off. Exactly. Stop thinking that way. And I'll tell you what, when you were talking about politics before, Trump, not Trump, Hillary, not Hillary, who gives a damn, right?

It's like we're not going to change it from our position. We're not, and we're not going to change it arguing online and Twitter and hating each other and poking each other and blocking each other. That's not going to help, right? What's going to help is me knowing what I'm going to do in my world to create influence enough to make the change that I can see that it'll affect my world around me. And that will have a ripple effect of radiant value that will carry itself outward. And we can only do effective change with positivity and not with negativity that's where i see that's where i

see the problem with the press now left right front and center it doesn't matter it's all negative it's all negative i like the ripple speech by robert f kennedy that's one of the most expiring inspiring things that uh i've ever done the ripple of speech. I don't know if you ever heard it. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's wonderful in South Africa. And there's a, there's a couple of key parts in it that I've,

I've given to some of my executive friends on, on plaques and, and pictures and stuff. But you know, the ripple of hope, the fact that we can enact positive change for me, the journey was I, I,

you know, I reached a point of being triggered by gaslighting to an umpteenth level in 2015 and then 16 made it worse and then my friend went you're being gaslit chris i'm like what the you know i was about to punch him in the face what does that mean and uh you know explained it to me and i'm like okay and that helped me manage a little bit better and then i had to go on the journey as to all the way back to my childhood as to why this was such a problem for me and why it triggered me so much so i had to i had to resolve those issues and square that circle or circle that square one of the two i like a circle square better um it's just i like a circle

fuck squares um they have corners You can hurt yourself on them. I went through that whole journey and now I'm quite a bit better. We do a retreat every year in Peru and Cusco and we hit Machu Picchu and stuff like that, but we work with the Quechua tribe, which is the last

descendants of the Inca Empire. There's only 800 of them left. We work with them and we work with the plant medicine, Ayahuasca last descendants of the Inca Empire. There's only 800 of them left. Holy crap. And yeah, we work with them and we work with the plant medicine, Ayahuasca and San Pedro, but we do it in a way to create, to find identity, to find purpose and create certainty in your life. And we purge all of that negativity. We purge all those things. And we do it with business leaders.

So here you are with executives, right? In like a retreat in this, like bush huts and everything with the Indians and the indigenous people, excuse me if that's not politically correct. I live in Europe, I don't know. The indigenous tribe of the Keshawa tribe. And these guys are like showing up the first day going,

what in the hell is this? Where's the four-star hotel? Nope, that's a hut right over there. That's where you're staying. And after two or three days, they're just like, I never knew this existed in me. Like they find people inside of themselves and they go back and they explode and excel because they turned all that negativity away and made it only positive according to their identity and their purpose.

And that identity, once you have identity through purpose, you have that certainty. And certainty has one key element in it that makes your world so much easier. And that is once you know and you're certain that whatever it is that you want will happen, you don't have to worry about how it's going to happen. You just operate on a proper moral compass, in this case of hit, and it will happen.

It doesn't even matter how, if you're certain it is. And when you get to that point, Chris, I'll tell you, life becomes almost effortless, where you're like, okay, this is like weirdly too easy. What's going on here? What's wrong? Something's going to happen wrong. And then you start thinking like that again, and what do you do with scarcity of mindset?

Bam, hits you on the head. You go back to Peru. It takes a few times. No, I like that. I like that concept. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think from what you told me of your journey, you've been through those experiences, but where life has thrust upon you a new identity or made you go back to basics with your identity. I've certainly had a few points in my life, I forget what they're called, but where you lose everything, including what you thought was your identity. Like I'd be like, well, as long as I can keep the BMW and the gold watch

and the big house and the canyon, I'm still me. And then you lose that. And life will put you through these phases sometimes where it kicks you down to the core where you're just like, well, you know, sleeping on the floor isn't too bad. Well, it's funny you say that because when I was homeless, that's when it really, really hit me. Yeah, that's when I –

Yeah. You find out who you really are. Yeah, but you also find out all that shit that you were bugging about. Didn't matter. Didn't matter at all. Didn't matter at all. It didn't mean jack shit. Of course, I didn't learn that time.

It took me a little more slaps in the head, right? But, you know, it doesn't mean – As a matter of fact, I remember sitting there going, you me a little more slaps in the head right but um you know it doesn't mean as a matter of fact i remember sitting there going you know what i could get a job tomorrow but i don't want to i think i'm gonna stick around for a little bit yeah i want to be a little more homeless yeah i was a lucky fight club uh the movie broke me and i was being broken at the time i was i was very rich and we had three different places uh that i was living to uh spending uh spending every weekend flying to Vegas and living in Vegas and then flying back to Utah to work.

We had an office in Denver I'd fly to in a place, and I had two BMWs and an airport at a time. And I was living this crazy life, and everyone hated me. Like all my friends hated me. All my girlfriends hated me. They always wanted my money. It was that old stick song as long as i'm buying everyone's my friend you know sort of thing oh yeah uh and uh

uh and and i was living this life and i'm like this really fucking sucks to be rich and like everyone starts suing you for bullshit then you're suing them and and you find it do you find that the rich pretty much sue each other as a mat you know there's no mafia anymore you just fucking sue the fuck each other you don't bring you don't bring kneecaps anymore uh and uh i just went what the fuck is this and i saw a fight club and that broke me that you know the whole you know i i'd been buying all this stuff to impress all these people who didn't give a shit about me. And I'm like, this isn't working for me. I'm the most unhappy I've ever been in my life.

I was probably happier when I was born. I didn't have that situation like that. But what I had was influence. So, I mean, I had really good money but i had night club right and i had health health clubs very high in health each each health club would cost about 19 to 29 million dollars just well so it was a plc like i said from the uk so people would say oh you're the owner oh you're the you know that kind of thing right so oh hey steven hi oh nice oh you know you're at the club and they're like oh hey vip area is opening that kind of thing right so oh hey steven hi oh nice oh you know you're at the club and they're like oh hey vip area is opening that kind of stuff as soon as that stuff was gone yeah crickets yeah

no one returns your phone calls yeah well i didn't i didn't have any i didn't make any phone calls but still they didn't call me to say hey what's going on where you at we haven't seen you and once you're out of the monastery i went to a monastery for eight months didn't tell anybody didn't pay any bills didn't didn't do anything didn't tell anybody except for my my family and so I could have been dead yeah no one asked no one no one even like that's when you find out you know how much the bullshit was where you are yeah exactly and then you have an impact in the world and then suddenly you're like oh my god and then you're really down to your core I wish I'd gone to Peru first because I didn't really need to go through the whole experience,

but I really freaking learned a lot. And then in 2008, I went through the experience again. I built a mortgage over 20 years and I'm like, okay, this is going to go. We had our courier company that was going well and I finally shut that down because it was just a liability. And then we had a more talent agency, modeling, acting agency. I shut that down because it was just a liability. And then we had a more talent agency, modeling, acting agency. I shut that down because I was just annoying after, you know, I ran its course.

It was fun. But then, you know, after a while, it just becomes really stupid. I can't imagine how modeling is going to be fun. I was friends with Ron Rice from Hawaiian Tropic. And my girls would go see Hugh Hefner. And I had 400 of the hottest girls in Utah on my phone at any given time. We could go to any club. I would actually get sick and tired of going to clubs five times a week

because club promoters would call us and be like, Hey, Chris, we got a VIP. You're going to have security guards and everything. We just need to bring six chicks with you because no one wanted me to come to the club. Yeah, exactly. They're like, we know you have the book. I was one of those guys calling you when I had my clubs. That's probably what I was.

Like, seriously, I just have to be like, dude, I've been out five times this week. We used to get free memberships to the models for the health clubs, but they had to come at a certain time of day. Oh, did they? Oh, yeah. What a game. it was brilliant i could i could put my girls to work at your show but we had we had touched by an angel at the time in utah we had wormwood i think i think it was wildwood or wormwood and then back then there was like a huge union strike going on in california or some bullshit and so everyone was coming to utah to film. And so we, you know, we had actors, models, and I would throw these parties, like 400 people, 200 people at my house,

piss off the cops in my neighborhood. Um, and, uh, it was a lot of fun for a while. Uh, Ron Rice, who ran Hawaiian Tropic, he, he's like, you need a bikini team. So I got a bikini team. Uh, we do like events and then hawaiian tropical to have their state uh you know their state like miss america crap they'd have their state thing and then you move up to the national level and right and so um it was fun for a while yeah these are all things that we do that just sort of i don't know i guess we have to you know wear our horns down or who knows why we do it you know there's a lot of stupid shit that I do. I was in my 30s and I've been singing all my life. It was pretty interesting.

It was something that very few people get to go through. Being called the Hugh Hefner of Utah was definitely interesting. I really wanted to meet him before he passed, which is unfortunate. I really look up to him. It's kind of weird now. I still know a lot of the girls.

Now there are these upright soccer moms. They have four kids. They're going to church every Sunday and stuff. I'm just thinking, wow, I got some stories. I'm still friends with them, so we all hang out. They're

just wonderful people. It's been good.'s awesome you know it's kind of the journey you go through and uh so i didn't think i'd lose the mortgage company but yeah that recession in 2008 just took the legs off that was amazing that was amazing that was incredible i was overseas too i mean it's like a lot a lot of most my income was tied to the mortgage bank and of course we were investing in films jesus what a mess that was yeah films i've had friends see i i I, I, that, that's how I knew about the films. We talked about this in the pre-show and investing in films

because we had the acting and modeling agency. So we knew a lot of people in Hollywood and I knew people that invested in films. And of course they would try to get me to invest in films and, you know, my casting agents and people that I knew, I was really lucky. I get to sit in sometimes on different auditions and stuff like that. I think we had Bob Estevez that we had, who's the brother of Martin Sheen. And he would call me, and he sounds just like Martin Sheen. He's done the – is it Joe Estevez or Bob?

No, I think it's Joe. Is it Emilio? Something like that. The name Sheen is a fake name uh yeah i know they're all estevez's i don't know what his name is yeah but yeah it's it's either joe or bob s i believe show us is but joe is like a b movie star and when you normally hear martin sheen on like cheap commercials or cheap movies and stuff like that in fact he did the voiceover at the end of apocalypse now for martin because martin had a beef, had a big falling out after his heart attack with,

uh, Francis Ford Coppola. But I would hear about all the stories. In fact, at one point we had, uh, Oh, who was the Kirk,

um, Kirk Douglas. We had Michael Douglas's brother come up. I believe it was Sean, uh, Sean Douglas, uh, come up and,

you know, so we had, we had people from Hollywood coming up and, and, and you know, we'd hear all the stories and stories of investments. So yeah, that's a, that's a crazy business. Yeah. We were, you know, but back then, you know, you remember an investment banks were a big deal back then. So we would walk in and we would just stroll into the Israeli discount bank in

New York city, top floor, you know, and we talked to, we talked for 20 minutes and get a deal done for like 75 million dollars for a slate for for quentin tarantino and lawrence bender and it was like okay did you know it was in that one yeah no okay we got money for it we got money for it we didn't personally do yeah yeah because it was 75 million that was that was the one that really fucking bombed right no no that was a slate so a slate is when you do like anywhere from four to ten to twenty films with one lump of money oh so here's this here's here's 75 million dollars make five films and typically they'll say we're gonna make six films and they only end up making two money anyway yeah

so um but yeah that was i think that was when that was way back when but i think it was one of one of the films they were going to film was the glorious bastards if i'm not mistaken oh that was a great oh yeah which is funny because they filmed that in berlin where i was one of the, one of the films that we're going to film was a glorious bastards, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, that was a great. Oh yeah. Which is funny. Cause they filmed that in Berlin where I was living at the time. Yeah. So I got to hang out with those guys, a couple of those guys too.

And there's actually a bar, it was a bar cafe in Berlin named Tarantino. So guess where they went every night. That's one way to get Tarantino to show. I'm a huge Tarantino fan. Yeah. Who isn't? I mean,

I think he's brilliant. He's, he's, he's just one of a kind for sure. Yeah. Yeah, who isn't? I mean, I think he's brilliant. He's just one of a kind for sure. Yeah, I still have to go see the new one. I haven't seen it yet. I haven't seen it either. I haven't seen it either. I think people are already talking PC and all this kind of bullshit.

You know, why doesn't, you know, oh, God, there's already people. You can't go PC with his movies. I mean, he uses the N-word explicitly in all of them. Well, they try. They try. Yeah. Everyone hates. You know, a lot of it's

historically fairly correct although you know he's going to go to the umpteenth level i still love kill bill like kill bill was just one of the greatest movies of all time but yeah i think he's one of the greatest producers you know akira karasawa um you name it so anyway what was that what was the one movie uh with um I always forget the name of it, from Dusk Till Dawn. Was that the one where they were? Yeah, with Dusk Till Dawn. Like a real normal movie until they go out into the desert

and go to the Titty Twister. And just some high-end movie. Yeah, that was the most fun film I ever watched. Yeah, that movie was so great. In fact, I think there's a photo of me somewhere with one of my favorite actors uh let me see if i can remember the name because i always forget his name um he was the guy who was in jail for like murder and stuff he's the um hispanic gentleman he was in heat and uh i'm looking at his picture right now and i don't know why i don't have this tagged but uh i've got a picture of i got a chance to meet him up in utah i came up for a film they did up there um but uh yeah he was in that movie uh and yeah just so many good stuff

but this is the journey you go on man you lose everything you get your identity and then you come back and live an interesting life and and keep going you know it's never ending it's never ending look i talked to a guy you know i had mentor. He was 98 years old when he died, but he started weightlifting when he was 83. When he was 83, then by the time he was 87, he won seven gold medals in bicycling, running, rowing, the whole works. I said, dude, what are you doing? Look, this is how you stay alive, man. You're in competition with yourself. You're always growing and always learning.

I want to learn new things and always grow new things. And he was competing in bodybuilding at 98 years old when he got pneumonia and died. I guess he was pushing too hard. But, I mean, the guy was agile, smart, sharp of mind, and he told me, that's how I stay sharp of mind. I'm always competing with myself. I'm always setting short, mid, and long-term goals. And I'm always pushing myself to the next goal.

So, yeah. I think maybe that's why people lie to themselves and they think they've got to lie to others is they think the competition is with other people, but it's really with themselves. Completely. Well, that's, again, scarcity mindset. Scarcity mindset will always bring you down.

And that's exactly what you nailed it. They think it's competition with others. Once you know your identity and your purpose, it doesn't matter what anybody else does because it all adds to the cake. That's the beauty of it. And then people got to understand, let go of the outside just for a little bit

and go on the inside and find out who you are for real, man. I mean, the last goal setting course, you mentioned that. It's on my website under, under products. It's a, it's an eight week course. It's one video a week with one feedback a week. And that teaches you, how do I find my identity and my purpose? Then you set 100 goals for the next 30 years. And so that's how you stretch out and you open your mind completely up to what it is that you want, and you attach your identity to that. So then you're on a path and your eyes are open instead of focusing on that one thing. People talk about, oh, I want a million dollars. What's a million dollars look like? What's it really look like? Well, if you have a million dollars, it means

you've got to be able to take tax on that million dollars. Exactly, right? You've got to put, oh, I can't pay the tax. Or someone says, I want a Bentley. And then you get a Bentley, and they can't pay the gas. They can't pay the insurance. So what they really mean is they want a lifestyle of someone who can afford a Bentley and can spend a million dollars. I had that problem. The first BMW I bought, I went to the gas station to try to put regular in. And it's like, you got to put premium in this thing. I'm like, whoa, what did I just do?

Over here, they sold everybody diesel. i have all all of my beamers were diesel it's like they don't yeah it's a turbo diesel so i got um i had the seven series when it first came out uh the new the new newer version uh and it was diesel i was like this is so weird but it doesn't sound like the diesels in america it doesn't sound like a truck it's just very quiet is it dirty like with diesel in amer? No, no, no. Super particle filters. That's the whole trick. The reason I feel this is because you have to get that particle filter changed every two or three years.

And that thing costs like three grand. Holy shit. It's like a Kailai converter, but worse. So you have to sell a kidney to get that thing replaced. Most people go to the shop and just blow it out for five bucks or whatever. It's ridiculous. Wow. Yeah.

And now the European Union is trying to ban diesel cars. After they sold, for the last 20 years, they sold everybody diesel as the only viable solution. It was literally, of every 100 BMWs on the road, there's three that are running on gas. Holy crap. Gasoline. The rest are running on diesel.

And now they're saying, hmm, we're going to outlaw them. Wow. Yeah, it's crazy. I know. Well, VWs will probably be okay because they were lying for like so many years. Boom, boom. Well, it turns out the smart car, you know the little smart car?

You know that little shoebox car? I had one and they said it's clean as heck. They found out it puts out more diesel particles than a truck yeah plus the batteries and the acid and stuff that stuff it takes so many special minerals to make those cars and special stuff it's almost more of a pollutant just on its own and like here in america like my friends will be like i have an electronic car you really i'm like you know they burn coal to make the electricity right to charge that fucking thing not only that yeah but then they gotta but they gotta mine and they got i mean and of course all the batteries that they gotta get rid of batteries we have a million

yeah yeah well we recycle them no because the components you can't read you can't what's you can't take them apart and filter them out they're once they're one they're battery acid yeah you know and then we and then what's interesting is what's going on in the world. Not to get off where I were completely off topic at this point. We can go off topic. But you know, China's not taking anyone's trash anymore. So yeah,

we're having some real problems. They're sending ships back. So your last goal setting course found it to Stephen dash coon.com. Right. Teach you, you create a system for yourself. This is really interesting. These tidbits,

I want to read these, uh, shows you how to stretch goals outside of your comfort zone enables you to take steps towards your goals every day and transform single actions and routines internalize your routine so comprehensively that it becomes a habit sounds like a great way to become accountable completely and we also use what we call habit stacking from the from the the book um um atomic habits uh and actually it's funny because i almost said another but we also use i'm sure you know the book never split the difference yeah yeah who you know who wrote it right who wrote never split the difference. Oh, stop it, man.

Fucking guy, man. The ex-FBI, the ex-FBI negotiator. We're friends. He served with my buddy of mine who was in the FBI. Please stop. Fucking guy hijacked my whole SEO. His real name is Christopher Voss. He did it just to steal all my rep. So anyway, so the last goal-setting course teaches you to create a system for yourself.

You be accountable. And yeah, what are you going to do, man? That's crazy. It's also – it's literally the last time that you need to have a goal-setting course because it's not – typically, you set a goal and you reach it. Okay, now what what this is a goal for the next 30 years these are your goals for next 30 you're gonna have more as you go along but to sit down and actually take the time and we we bring you through this in our videos to take the time to write 100 goals down 25 for each four areas of life and it's like wow um i've just created my future and then you start creating that certainty and

that certainty then again of course you get to let go of the how so yeah it's um um it's incredible and you know we just did it without any promotion my partner and i and like 65 people signed up in like two days when i go okay i guess we're doing this and it just really went nuts so now it's just an evergreen so people can go on there anytime they want and just sign up and off they go, and it's super easy and expensive. You can check that out at steven-coon.com. You know, when you said habit stacking, I was thinking of something completely different.

I was thinking of habit stacking is where on your desk you have, like, a beer, a shot, and a line of Coke. I thought that's what habit stacking was. Maybe in the old days it was. I don't know. I need to get a rim shot sound effect somewhere on the show. Habit stacking is where you take a habit that you already have and you stack a new habit on top of it.

So, for instance, if you brush your teeth at the same time every morning and you want to journal after that, put your journal beside your toothbrush. Is that where I want to sleep with my girlfriend and her mom and her twin sister? I don't know how you would say that. I'm thinking of all the possibilities. You're doing your best to pull me away, aren't you? No, I'm sorry, man.

I'm sorry. No, that's all right. That's all right. My habit stacking. When you said that, I'm just like, habit stacking? I think it might be immediately. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, well, you know.

The old habits die hard, right? Yeah. I mean, habit stacking, I don't know. Is that where I take two coffees? Like I do that every morning, a habit stack. I take one coffee and then a two coffee. But no. So explain habit stacking because I clearly am missing.

Habit stacking is this. So if you want to create a new habit, just remembering to do it is really difficult. So what you want to do is if you want to start listening to a guided meditation every morning at 8 o'clock, what habit are you usually doing at that time? So what's the first thing you do? You make a coffee. Okay, you make a coffee. Put your MP3

or whatever it is that you listen to or your earphones right next to the coffee machine. So when you come make a coffee, oh shit, that's right, I got to do my meditation. That's a habit stack right there. That's all it is. So you're combining the habits so they'll trigger or they'll, I'm not sure what the right

word is, enhance or they'll bind together. So you have a habit. You go to bed every night, whenever you go to bed, but you want to or they'll, I'm not sure what the right word is, enhance, or they'll bind together. The trigger, the trigger, yeah, because that's why you're, so you have a habit. You go to bed every night, whenever you go to bed, but you want to create a new habit to read 10 minutes before you go to bed. So what do you do when you get up in the morning? You make your bed, if you do, which you should.

You take your book, you put it on your pillow, so when you go to bed at night, oh, I'm going to read. That's habit stacking. That's what I do. I want to make sure that i tell everyone i love them and make sure that i'm consistent with that every day so i always have my wife's number and the mistress's number right below each other so i can call both of them tell them both i love it i'm just trying to be consistent here this is the only comedy on the chris vosh

lowbrow man It's all blue. I'm just kidding. Steven right now is like, why the fuck did I do this? No, no, no. What the hell did I get myself into? No, but I love your site. You're speaking. You're traveling. Well, I guess you travel and you do speak,

but for the most part, you're trying to stay online, help people with their businesses. If I'm listening in the audience right now, who's your client that should be reaching out to you right now and saying, I need help from Steve? Right. Typically, it's a client who's making about $150K a month, been in business for at least three years. Well, that's the size. They have to have some kind of success. They've got to have – well, that's the impact that I can have.

So the first thing I do is I go in and do what I call immediate impact revenue. So I find dormant revenue. There's only three ways to grow a company. That's higher prices, more clients, and repeat sales. And underneath those three ways to grow a company, there's 32 ways to make that happen. Most people are doing four to five to 10 max. So that means there's another 20 ways out there that I can make money for you immediately. And once I do that, then I focus on the real problem, which you were talking about before,

which is typically the leader. But I take care of the perceived, the perceived problem first. Hey, Steve, the sales team sucks. We need money. Okay. Coming in. We're going to do it. You made your money. Now can we talk about the real problem? And, you know, and I do it in that way so that they gain trust first and they're open to that. Right. that, right? If I go balls in and say, look, you're the problem, then it's not going to be a very nice time. So that's why I like those larger companies. And I work with smaller companies, but they have to be able to sustain it. And to be able to sustain it means they have to be able to work with me

a bit longer than a company that's already established. So our Humble Alpha program is a year, but that's already established. So my, my, uh, you know, our, our humble alpha program is a year, uh, but that's coaching and everything. My consulting is four to six months only, unless you really want to go longer than it drops to a small retainer where I'm like a doctor.

You just call me when you're in trouble. Um, and, and it's, it's very effective. We work very hard in the one hour that we speak to each other. So, um,

and, and I've, I've, I other. So, um, and, and I've, I've worked with, uh, one company in Texas who was a roofing company. Um, and we took him, uh,

he made his first million now. I found 150 K in the first hour of dormant revenue in the first hour. We were working together. There was a, there was a, uh, a health club chain. Uh,

there was a marketing agency. There's market had a hundred, a hundred million a $100 million ad spend working with them. So it's very weapons companies. Anybody who needs that next level, they're either stuck on a plateau and they can't grow, they can't scale, or they're really in trouble and they need to turn around. They're the two companies.

The times that I usually found when I looked at companies that were struggling, a lot of times they never thought out of the box and they've never, it seems really simple to me and you, but they've never said, why do we do things this way?

It's because they don't know what they don't know. You don't know what you don't know and people say, oh my God, how could I never think of that? Because you didn't know it. It's not your fault.

Just don't know. One time someone handed me the keys to a company that was going to file bankruptcy at the end of the week. They weren't going to make their payroll, which was going to throw them into bankruptcy. Or they were going to, I think the out was to go bankruptcy. And I went in and pretty much stayed awake for 48 hours going over their books, their operations, everything.

Took control of it. And they were spending like so much stupid shit for stupid shit um it was crazy i mean they were just the stuff they were wasting money that was crazy and i literally went through cut it all down cut it up brought in better vendors yeah and and really streamlined it we made payroll at the end of the week they never filed bankruptcy. And we turned that company around. And I remember meeting with one of the owners later and was like, how the hell did you do that? And I'm like, you guys are doing so much stupid shit internally that I just had to cut it all out and down and then re-strategize it. See, that's the beauty of what I do is I don't look at the financials until I've made them more

money. So I literally make revenue. I don't cut costs. And so until I've made them more money. So I literally make revenue. I don't cut costs. And so when I walk in, they're like, oh, you want to see my P&L? Nope. What? No, I don't want to see your P&L. If everything stays as it is and this is where you want to go, I'm going to get you here.

That's where we're going to go. And from then, we're going to look at you, and after that, we're going to look at the P&L. And what that does is like, wow, this guy really wants to give. Matter of fact, when we come up with an exact number, I guarantee my cost back in revenue in the time that we work together. So whatever you pay me in the time we work together, you're going to make that back in revenue, not by cost cutting, but by new revenue. There you go. That's how confident we are.

That's how confident we are. That's awesome, Sauce. That's awesome, Sauce. It is. Well, Sounds good. So if you're making that kind of money, you got that kind of company and you, you know, I, I always say, uh, hire consultants before you need to and hire advice, get, get outside your head and stuff, but build your board and all that stuff. Um, so that you, you can get out because the last thing you want to do is be trying to find your own ass in the darkness when, when the shit hits the fan and you know you get the class action lawsuits are coming and and uh you know that's the last time where you're gonna be like well maybe we should rethink this well look you know it's we work with i work with smaller companies who are veterans obviously i mean a lot like i said a lot of veterans they get cut prices and

that kind of stuff but i don't really want to promote that because it's the veterans thing is not something that i'm really making money on. It's something that, that I'm doing as a goodness of my heart. And I really want to make this happen for these guys and gals. Um, but if it's veterans out there that, that are in that position where they're like,

look, man, you know, we could really explode if we just knew how to do this out of the other. And of course they can reach out, you know, so it's not, I'm not,

I mean, I don't say no to anybody and I'll put it, put it to this way. Anybody who calls me or writes me,'re gonna get they're gonna have a conversation with me one way or the other it doesn't matter how much you make doesn't matter how big your company is and typically i i if i turn you down because we don't fit together i will i will give you someone who is in either your price range or in your niche or whatever it is that you need so don't have this people shouldn't have fear. Just, oh, God, that's, you know, whatever. Just give me a holler.

Like I said, I give. My only intention in this world, in every meeting that I have, and even with you today, is to create value. There's no wants, no expectations, no wishes, no nothing. It's just my only intention

is to create as much value as I can. In every meeting, in every chance encounter that I have. And that, my friend, is the secret to true happiness, if you ask me, because if I don't have any expectations unless I verbalize them in a business, for instance, I'm never disappointed. And what I've learned from you today, Stephen, is that you're just trying to be significant.

I learned this. I see you. I learned. You have taught me in my list or something that it will be awesome high value to me anything more we need to know as we wrap the show steven i think we covered a lot and thank you so much for going over for going over to overtime with me i you know i'd like to give your your your you know listeners who stuck around this long a big applause for you know hanging in there and listening to us it was they are awesome and if you didn't well you're not gonna hear it anyway danny trejo was the guy from danny trejo of course yeah yeah yeah there's a that's who i was thinking too in my head but i

couldn't think of his name either yeah he's such a great actor really wonderful guy when you meet him like i've heard that about you would think that he was you know you kick your butt but he's so meek and so mild and and uh I wouldn't want to piss him off. I wouldn't want to test it. I've heard that about him. I've heard that from somebody else who met him. He's just the nicest guy. I watched that movie Machete. I don't want to piss him off.

Wasn't it like a Machete 2 or something? It was like something like that. Yeah, I know. There shouldn't have been the attack of the killer tomatoes either. That's true. There's a lot of, there shouldn't have been the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes either. That's true. There's a lot of movies that shouldn't have been. But anyway, thanks for being on the show, Stephen.

We certainly appreciate it. My pleasure. You can find us at stephen-coon.com. Stephen, you want to plug me or Twitter and Facebook, LinkedIn or anything like that? Yeah, Twitter is Stephen E. Coon. Stephen E. Coon, as in Eugene. My LinkedIn is also Stephen E. Coon.. Stephen E. Kuhn, as in Eugene. My LinkedIn is also Stephen E. Kuhn.

Yeah, you'll find me. Just put in Google Stephen Eugene Kuhn, and you'll find me in every platform. Awesome sauce. Well, thanks to my audience for tuning in. I learned some really cool things here. I'm probably going to go back on the tape and listen to some of it

and catch up on some of the books you recommended and things like that. We'll look forward to your book coming out, I believe, in November, correct? Yep. November. All right. And thanks, Monix, for tuning in.

Be sure to check in every day. Subscribe to the show. There are seven podcasts at thecvpn.com or thechrisfosspodcastnetwork.com. You can go to either or and get those. Be sure to recommend the show to your friends, neighbors, relatives, dogs, cats, mistresses, pool boys. You know, get everybody to listen to that show, man. Just play it at home for the dogs and cockroaches when you're at work

because you want them to be smarter as well. I don't know why you want cockroaches to be smarter. That makes no sense. I'll let my audience score that one. They're like, what? There must be a reason. Anyway, I'll let you guys pawn to that till the next show and there might be an answer or there might not so thanks for tuning in we certainly appreciate my audience

and we'll see you guys next time