The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Walt Thiessen Podcaster and Motivational Speaker

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Walt Thiessen Podcaster and Motivational Speaker Loatoday.net

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks is voss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey we're coming here with another great podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in thanks for being here oh my gosh for further show to your family friends and relatives go give it a great review on itunes we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Thanks for being here. Oh, my gosh. For further show to your family, friends, and relatives, go give it a great review on iTunes.

We certainly appreciate people that do that. Go to Goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfuss. See all the things we're reading and reviewing over there. Also, go to all of our groups, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all those crazy places. Make sure you subscribe to LinkedIn newsletter. Things killing it over there, as always. And our 131,000 LinkedIn newsletter. I think it's killing it over there as always. And our 131,000 LinkedIn group. You can find us anywhere across the social media platforms except for Snapchat.

I don't know why we hate Snapchat. Anyway, you can find us everywhere. Just search the Chris Voss Show and it's always there. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. Today we have an amazing gentleman on the show with us today. He's going to be sharing some of his insightful knowledge and stuff on everything he knows. His name is Walt Thiessen. He, in 2002, established a business helping small nonprofit organizations to build and manage their website presences online. Then the 2008 financial crisis came along,

and his entire business got wiped out in a single stroke. It happened to me too. When cash gets tight, the last thing people want to do is give to charity and the clients he served all went belly up. Four years later, he and his wife were deep in debt and while he had tried to revive his flagging business, it was clearly on life support. Walton knew he needed help but couldn't even afford to buy a book, let alone hire a coach. What could he do? Then he thought, I know. This is new, popular thing called podcasting.

I'll create a podcast and invite successful people on my show, and they can coach me for free. That's what I do with authors. It works. Yeah, it does. He decided to make the focus of the show, The Law of Attraction, which popularized in the 2006 by the movie The Secret. The part that surprised him was how he loved doing the podcast, and now it's in its 10th year. Wow.

There you go. And it's produced over 1,600 episodes to date. Welcome to the show. How are you all? I'm fine. Thank you for having me here. I'm actually checking my brain to make sure it's not currently bleeding so I can do a before and after test just to see what's happening here. But I took warning from your introduction,

so I just wanted you to know I was paying attention. There you go. There you go. So give us your plugs so people can find you on those interwebs. Oh, man. LOA Today podcast can be found on any of the platforms. So whatever you subscribe to for podcasts, you'll find it there. If you can't find it by some miracle, just go to LOAToday.net forward slash subscribe. And we have them all

listed there, at least all the popular ones. So you can just pick the one that you tend to use the most and we'll help you find it that way. But yeah, we're all over the place. Almost as many places as you are, Chris. Maybe not quite so many, but it's pretty close. Yeah. Well, I mean, 10 years for a podcast, though. That's pretty freaking heavy. That's awesome. The funny thing about that is, I mean, I've done over

1,600 episodes and I actually just noticed that recently and I mentioned it to one of my co-hosts and they said, wow. And I said, yeah, that is a lot. How did I do that? I mean, seriously, because all I did was just keep doing podcast episodes over and over again. They just kind of add up over time. And then you host and they said wow and i said yeah that is a lot how did i do that i mean seriously because all i did was just keep doing podcast episodes over and over again they just kind of add up over time and then you look back and say oh my god i did 1600 of them i know it's crazy man it's crazy still to this day remember launching the chris voss show in 2008 uh and uh i remember the first

year it was just like the the only way I knew people were listening was by the Google analytics and the downloads. That was the only way I knew anybody was listening. I was engaging anything I did. They were just going, yeah, let's do what he's doing. And then after a year, like it just exploded. And, uh, but you had to build the audience and you had to also put down the content. So many people

like i did i did my first podcast episode where's the millions of listeners you have to build it and now i look back the content on our youtube channel is uh 23 million views i think it is wow there's over 4,500 pieces of video over there on the Chris Foss Show podcast. There's closing in on 5,000 posts on the – not on the podcast. I'm sorry. There's on the chrisfossshow.com. There's over 5,000 posts. The content we have is massive.

And what's even more crazier than to me is a lot of people like comment on videos they're watching from 12 years ago. Yeah, right? Yeah. Talk 12 years ago. Yeah, right? Talk about evergreen. Yeah, total evergreen. And they're like, hey, how's this work or something? Somebody commented on the iPhone 5 the other day that I got on my email. I love it. And I'm just like, what?

But people are still buying these products in India and third and secondary markets. So it's crazy to have that much data. But it is nice to kind of be in this pinch you moment where you go, wow, man, that was a lot of work. It is, but I kind of get the same impression from you that happened to me. I started doing it because I really needed it. I mean, that wasn't necessarily how you got yours started, but it's how I got mine started. And then after I got it started, it was in my blood. Like, oh my God, I can't get enough of this. I mean, I started off with just getting for guests I could get because I wanted, I really

did want the coaching and success, so to speak. But after a while, I just got some co-hosts because I wanted to do it every week. And then that wasn't even enough. And after a couple of years, I decided to go to daily and almost that isn't even enough. I mean, it's like an addiction that you don't have to go to Tucson, Arizona for treatment. It's the best kind of addiction in the world because you don't have to go into rehab. But I love it.

Yeah, and you have people that come on. I was a flunky in school. School was, book learning was not my thing. I'm a very tactile learner. Just show me, have me do it or do it where I can watch it and I got it. And, but, you know, I'm not, I'm,

I consume audio books a lot nowadays, but back then I just wasn't classroom settings being prisoned in a chair and you got to sit there for an hour. Like I still have problems. I have problems on planes with that. You got to sit here and do your little, I hate that. I'm not,

I'm a freedom sort of based person. And, uh, so, uh, having authors on the show, which is a large part of what we have, and journalists and CEOs, it's great because I just have to host the show, and they come on with their brilliance, their research,

and all of the things they've done with their life, like yourself, and share all the knowledge, and I just get to go, wow, man, front seat. I get to ask all the cool questions. Here are these book authors who spent 10,000 hours doing research on whatever it is. And I've always been a very variety. I'm a variety person, which is probably why I'm still single. And I just love everything. I love learning everything. Oh, what's that about? Oh, that's interesting. The people are interesting to me. So yeah, it's been really fun. Tell us more about what you do and stuff like that. I'm kind of motivated in the same way.

My motivation also kind of skews very heavily toward the positive side. Of course, like you mentioned, the nominal topic is law of attraction, although we kind of relabel that as living our abundance. We think that's a little bit better way of describing it. But the whole idea behind it is if your mindset is going to be is going to drive what happens when you take your actions. And so therefore, you want to have a mindset that basically fuels the kind of results you're looking for, which is not going to be focusing all your attention on everything that's going wrong in your life. That's not going to get you where you want to go. You got to focus on what you do want. So I make it a point with all

of my guests, with myself, with co-hosts, listeners, everybody, we're constantly looking for where's the bright side? What's the happy side? Where can I find something to appreciate? Even in something that I don't like so much, if it's a topic that I really can't stand, there's got to be somewhere in there that I can appreciate something. And I make that my goal. So we subtitled the show, Your Daily Dose of Happy, because the goal with every single episode of LOA Today is to start off at whatever point we're at, high, low, medium, wherever we're at emotionally, physically, mentally, and then raise the bar by the end of the show. And if we can do that every episode,

we figure we've succeeded. So do you mostly just have coaches on the show then? No, wide variety. I mean, yeah, I've had a lot of coaches on the show, a lot of authors like yourself, a lot of people just with interesting life stories. Give you an idea. I had a gentleman on just a couple of weeks ago who is a pianist. He has been playing piano all of his life. And back in the 1980s, he wrote this song that went crazy on the easy listening radio stations. Now, I'd never heard the song before. It was called Rachel's Song.

But it just took off. It became viral before the word viral was viral. It went viral because there was no internet yet. The internet didn't exist. So, I mean, he couldn't take advantage of all the things that people can do now. So he had to literally do everything manually. He had to reach out to his audience manually. He couldn't find anybody to publish it. So he had to literally do everything manually. He had to reach out to his audience manually. He couldn't find anybody to publish it, so he had to publish it himself.

He had to become his own distributor. I mean, he did the whole nine yards, and it fueled the rest of his life, that one little song. I mean, that's a cool story. Yeah, it is. That's a really cool story. So that's the kind of people I like having on the show because that's your daily dose of happiness as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, it's pretty nice. I probably should have more coaches on because then, like you said, you get free coaching or something. Oh, yeah. One of my colleagues, one of my co-hosts, her name is Cindy, and she says I'm the best coached man in America. Wow. And she's a life coach, so she should know, right?

Maybe I should start the Chris Vaughn Show. I have a separate channel for the life coaches. Why not? Yeah, go for it. And do that. Yeah, free coaching. So I don't know. Does my audience really want to hear about all my problems?

I've got this hangnail here now. I'm just kidding. It depends whether you make it funny or not. If you make it funny, I think they will. Oh, there you go. Maybe that's the key. Maybe I need to – that or – I don't know. I think my audience is sick of my problems already. I think they've kind need to, that or, I don't know. I think my audience is sick of my problems already.

I think they've kind of heard enough. Although, I don't know. I usually don't talk about it. Well, there's an interesting point in there because we do, as humans, spend far too much time focusing on our problems. The interesting thing is how little time we spend focusing on our solutions.

Have you ever noticed that? I focus on the denial of all my problems. Okay, yeah, we'll just start. At least you know where you're coming from. That's good. You know, or I'm going to, I don't know. Who knows coming or going, what would happen to you think if people actually spent more time focusing on, I'm going to have a solution here instead of I have a problem. That's very important. I think we had someone on the show recently and talked about it where, uh, I think it was a black joy. Uh, the author of black joy was on the, it's a book called black Joy. But one of the things she found in therapy was a therapist asked her,

what gives you joy in life? Where's your joy focus? And she's like, I don't know. We don't really focus on joy. No one thinks about how can I find joy today? We're like, how do I fix that stupid problem? And so that paradigm of focusing on finding joy as opposed to mulling in your problems is a good way to go. So I like how you do the show and go up from there.

And I think it makes a big difference in the lives of our listeners. It makes a difference in my life for sure because I notice it every day. I mean, I'm not kidding when I say I'm addicted to it, and that's why. Because I get a big lift every single day. So how often do you do shows? On Monday through Friday, every single day, Monday through Friday. I take the weekend off. And actually the weekend is when my energy dips because I'm not doing a show. Yeah. It's really weird. I've tried doing a show through the weekend and I just, I was frying too hard. You can overdo it. I was actually doing

twice a day at one point and I just practically burned myself out doing that. Yeah. We do twice a day. I've gotten to day. I've gotten pretty good. It used to be kind of hard. And sometimes I can be frazzled, depending upon the guests and the research we have to do for the show. But I don't think a lot of people realize you have to do a radio show every day. Oh, yeah. At the very least.

I've had people that are just like, yeah, we do like one a month. And I'm like, does anyone listen to that show? I mean, even we do. And I live this experience. I'm not being critical of people because I didn't do otherwise. I learned this lesson by, for many years, doing the show infrequently. And people, there's a reason radio stations, Howard Stern, great radio DJs, they run every single day, especially at drive time. The great thing about podcasting is you can put it up and then they can consume it at drive time or at work or whether making love or something, whatever they want to take and do. I have yet to have somebody say they were doing that during the show, but that would be kind of interesting.

I know people who watch the news and do it. They'll watch TV. I'm like, if you're watching TV. I have listeners who replace watching the news with listening to me because they want a better vibration out of it. Yeah, yeah. Maybe that should be the new show logo. More orgasms, the Chris Bond show. There you go.

Yeah, I've had friends that are like, yeah, we watch TV, we're making love, and I'm like, you're doing it wrong. Yeah, no kidding. You're focused on the wrong thing at the wrong time. Yeah, if you're watching TV like The Bachelor or something, you're making love, you're doing it wrong. Yeah, no kidding. You're focused on the wrong thing at the wrong time. Yeah, if you're watching TV like The Bachelor or something, you're making love, you're doing it wrong. Yeah, how about the person you're with there? Do you remember who she is?

I mean, or who he is? I think it's those married folks. Yeah, I know. It's a married joke. So there you go. What are the things you want to share with us today? Oh, wow. I guess there are so many things I'd like to touch on. I thought of one thing just now when we were talking about news.

We kind of mentioned news there. News, and there's a bunch of these topics, these general categories that a lot of negativity comes out of. We can pretty much all identify with them. There's news, lots of the popular culture, politics. I mean, there's like a whole slew of them. And there's an interesting little thing you can do as an experiment. You don't want to do this with your best friend. You don't want to do this with your worst enemy. You want to do it just like in a casual conversation, but it's very educational to do it. And that is you run into somebody, you've all been in a conversation

with somebody and they go off on a rant on all this and that, and there's terrible stuff and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all this thing going on and how horrible it is. And after they've gone on for a couple of minutes, you interrupt them and you say, hey, I've got a question for you. And they say, oh, what is that? And you say, what is it that you want instead? And invariably the answer will come back. I want to have none of that stuff that I was just naming.

None of that more. And then you have to say to them, no, you can't answer in terms of what you don't want. You can't tell me I want less of what I don't want. You got to tell me what you want. And then you watch the synapses snap because they aren't used to thinking that way because they're so attuned to focusing on the earthquakes and the crime and the terrorism and all the other stuff that they've been paying attention to. They don't know what they want. Instead, they haven't given it any thought.

Isn't that an interesting statement on the way society operates? Yeah. So we're kind of mired in the negativity and not really trying to figure out a way out of the gutter or out of the darkness that we have. So maybe people aren't searching for the light at the end of the tunnel. They're just clawing at the walls inside of the train tunnel. They're convinced that the light at the end of the tunnel is the engine coming at them. And so they're even putting that one out as well. Which is the case for me. Yeah, they've set themselves up, haven't they?

I mean, literally, there is no way out when you're in that mindset. You have to shift things. If you want a better result, you've got to shift the way you're giving your attention. If you don't, hey, you better enjoy where you're at. Because it's going to continue. That's the way it works. What are some of the favorite coaches you've had on your show or guests for that matter? Oh, it's interesting. I don't get a lot of really famous people on the show. I've had a few who are

famous in law of attraction circles, but actually they're not the most interesting guests. The most interesting guests are the ones who people have never heard of before. But I, like you, I've done my research. I've learned about them and then I get them onto a show and I find they're interesting. I keep bringing them back because they have so much insight to get. So much, so many ideas that I hadn't thought about. So many different ways of thinking about things. So, I mean, I could name the names and you wouldn't know any of them. Oh, wow.

But the point is that there are a huge chunk of the population that if we just get, if we take the time to get to know people, not because of who they are, not because of how big their following is, not just who are they, an amazing thing happens. We find that we've got really cool people in the population, people who can teach us stuff, people who have information that we hadn't even considered. That's where I've gotten my best education, bar none, without hands down, absolutely no doubt. I'll give you one example. My very first co-host, Joel Elston, he's a life coach. He was formerly a therapist. He's actually a, I guess in 12-step circles, it's considered forever.

So I guess he still is a recovering gambling addict. But he really is. It's all in the past for him. And the interesting thing about his story is when he was quite young, he went to work for his father's insurance company, but he had this horrible gambling addiction. He ended up embezzling from the company, heading off to Vegas, losing all the money, couldn't do anything at that point, had no place to live, no food to eat, ended up living behind McDonald's on the strip, eating out of a dumpster. Wow. That's how bad things got for him. He ended up getting arrested for having embezzled from his family's firm, went to jail for it, came out of jail, and then met just the right people, these average everyday coach that

we were talking about here, and learned from them, turned his life around. And within about a 10 to 20 year period, he had established not one, but two clinics for people with gambling addictions. And by the way, that's a really big deal because of all the different kinds of addictions you can have. The worst one to create a clinic for is a gambling addict because they have no money to pay for the clinic. I mean, it's funny, but it's also sad at the same time. He found a way to not only get two of them going, but to actually make them pay, which was really something.

And then he went even beyond that. And this kind of fell on him because of the work that he was doing. He lives in the Richmond, Virginia area, and he ended up getting fed clients from other therapists and coaches and social workers and so forth. And these were clients who were all kids in the foster care system. And they weren't just any kids. They were the worst ones. They were the ones that were considered completely unadoptable. Wow. Which is, by the way, a really serious issue because statistically speaking, if a kid goes through the entire foster care system until age 18, something like 95% chance they're either going to end up dead or in jail.

Wow. That's how bad it is. Jeez. Anyway, and he tended to get the males rather than the females. So these people are feeding all these males to him who are like the worst of the system, the ones that nobody can do anything with, like a last gasp. Well, maybe Jewel can do something with them. And invariably, he would help turn them around. He would use law of attraction teaching to basically empower them.

And the stories that come out of it were just amazing. 37 of them he found forever homes for. These were kids that were considered completely unadoptable, saved their lives, turned their lives around. One of them, this is one of our favorite stories that he told numerous times on the show. One of them is now currently going to college to become a psychologist so he can help other kids like himself who were rescued by Joel. I mean, now you don't hear about this guy anywhere. Yeah.

Ever heard of Joel Elston? No, of course not. But I mean, what a story that is. Yeah. What've never heard of Joel Elston. No, of course not. But I mean, what a story that is. Yeah. What a brilliant story. And giving back to, after coming from extra riches sort of story and everything else. And I'm pretty familiar with the addiction, uh, gambling addiction problems, right? Living in Vegas.

I mean, you, anybody who's got an addiction problem, you have to make sure you don't friend. If you become friends with them and you find out later there, they have addiction problems. You have to let them go. They will steal from you. Your checks will disappear. I mean, they'll ask for money all the time. I remember when I first went to Vegas, I was helping a bunch of Chinese investors. They were from China.

They weren't, like, from Chinese. I wasn't working with the Chinese. Not the syndicate, eh? I wasn't working for Mao. They were Chinese. I wasn't working with the Chinese. Not the syndicate, eh? I wasn't working for Mao. They were Chinese. They used to love taking me to Chinese restaurants and feeding me like, try that, Chris. Yeah, it's frog legs. It's a eyeball of a duck.

I'm just getting paid, so I don't care. Yeah, but you were enjoying every bite of it, I'm sure. It was interesting. Sometimes I wouldn't enjoy what they would tell me. It was always weird, But they were nice people. And so they wanted me to launch a mortgage company for them, and I launched one of the fastest mortgage companies in Vegas. And so that was kind of interesting.

What was the whole point of bringing that? Oh, I remember when I took the first check that they'd given me down to the bank, and I'd never cashed a check in Vegas before. And, uh, I hadn't set up an account yet or anything in Vegas. And, uh, I still had all our accounts in Utah and everything in our companies. And so I, uh, I went in to cash their check cause I wanted to make sure that they were, they had money. I like that first, I like that first check clear just to know that we got the money that's smart yeah yeah so uh because you don't want to work for for a month and you're like hey wow these guys ain't got no money and uh so or at least they're not going to pay me that's it

so i remember taking a check into wells fargo and they went through all this stuff they're like okay let's see all they blood tests urine tests i was like what the fuck is going on like people right this is back in the day when people would write checks like anywhere right and uh they even had to call them up and i'm like this is embarrassing you're gonna how long and they're like we've never cashed this check before and i'm like i just moved here and they're like uh they're like yeah the problem is you have to understand we live in a state where we have a lot of gambling addicts. And they pass a lot of bounce checks, a lot of bad checks, a lot of fraudulent checks. Sometimes they go print them.

You know, it's back in the day where you just go print them on a printer, laser printer, and they look real. And so we have to do all these verifications because the gambling addiction people pass a lot of checks and they go one of the problems with las vegas or gambling addiction is unlike drug addiction gambling addicts live forever because drug addiction or alcohol addiction it'll eventually kill you you have heroin addiction whatever but uh gambling addicts live forever so yeah you live in vega and uh it's the worst city to move to if you have a gambling problem oh god yeah atlantic city and reno come to mind but yeah oh yeah everything you could ever want in vegas is there so if you have anything you want it's pretty much there so it's the worst place to move if you can't maintain some sort of thing it's also a crazy city let's be perfectly honest i mean i have not spent much time i've been there literally once and i was there for a convention but i mean you gotta be ready for

anything in that town you i mean you do but you know once you get off the strip you get in the suburbs it's just like living in then it's normal right yeah i mean i used to live up in the suburbs and uh every now and then i'd drive around i'd see the downtown i'd be like hey i live in vegas oh my god what happened yeah i'm like i should go down. Oh, my God. What happened? Yeah. I'm like, I should go down to the Spring Rhino and get in trouble. But it's kind of nice because you live in the city of sin. You don't have to partake in it. But you're like, hey, anytime I want to go to a great dinner or see a great show.

Sure. Yeah. It's right there. But it's funny. People think that you live, that everyone lives on the strip. They're like, don't you live in the hotels that are there? No. Do they really say that?

No, seriously. They seriously do. They all think we live downtown. They call you at 11 o'clock at night. Hey, I just got out of a proud party. And yeah, man, can you come down from, I don't know, your room at the Bellagio and let's party and drink. And you're just like, dude, I got to work in the morning, man. I'm going to bed.

I'm old. And they're like, aren't you down here? And you're like, no, I'm like 40 minutes away up in the northwest. It's cool that guy did that for addiction because I know how ugly that is. It's rough. It's a very rough thing to have to experience

because unless you are lucky enough like he was to encounter somebody who knows the way out and knows how to help you get out, you can literally live a life of misery for your entire life. Yeah. Just one bad thing after another, because you can't find a way to deal with your addiction.

And it's one of those things that you really can't get financing for. I mean, it's not like there are massive funds for helping to fund people who are looking to get out of being addicts from being gambling addicts. The funds just don't exist for that. So it's a pretty serious problem. Yeah. It's pretty serious.

Definitely, they can write a check for it if you want. Yeah. But that clinic won't last very long. And so why did you – the name of the website is what again? Because I'm looking at your LOA.net. LOAToday.net. LOAToday.net is the website. And LOAToday, of course, is the podcast name.

And why'd you call it that? Why'd you name it that? It's a good question. I haven't had that question asked in a long time. I think I named it that because I was becoming aware at that point in time, how important now is. Because I had, like many people, I had a tendency to live in the past and to replay those old tapes from the past that weren't serving me well and that were actually undermining me. And it was kind had a tendency to live in the past and to replay those old tapes from the past that weren't serving me well and that were actually undermining me. And it was kind of a way to remind myself, no, I want to live in the now. So I want my show to be in the now, in the present, because really the present is the best present we've got. It is a wonderful thing. So why not

celebrate it? And then I kind of thought about there are TV shows like the Today Show and so forth. Now they're focusing on today. So why not make it today regarding the law of attraction so hello today there you go law oh law of attraction right i'm just looking over your website so i'm doing two things at once that's all right no problem but uh what uh what do you think most people learn from your show and stuff honestly i think the best thing that happens to anybody listening to the show is they get a lift. It doesn't even matter whether or not they're interested in law of attraction. Because honestly, we don't talk about law of attraction every day. I mean, occasionally, we'll slip it into the conversation because it's in the title. You kind of have to because that's

what your title is. But most of the time, we're just talking about life, kind of like what you and I are doing right here. We just talk about what's important to us. And then we always, this is one thing that is consistent. We're always looking for where is the bright side? What can I appreciate? What can I find as the good? Because I mean, it's so easy to go down that other way, right? Yeah. It's so easy. It's so freaking easy. And we can do it in our sleep practically. But the challenge, the real challenge is what can I find, even when I'm talking about something I don't like, what can I find to actually appreciate about it? I mean, the extreme example, and I don't recommend this for anybody

who's trying to start out with this, what can I appreciate about Adolf Hitler? There's nothing to appreciate about Adolf Hitler. But you know what? If you work at it, you can find a little thing somewhere. You know what I appreciate about Adolf Hitler? What's that? That he killed himself at the end. He's not here anymore.

I approve that part. Actually, it probably would have been better for everyone if he would have lived and could have gone on trial at Nuremberg and been executed. But I don't know. I mean, the fact that he's dead, let's put it that way, is a good thing. That's definitely.

I don't know. There's a certain power to realizing you're a fucking failure as a human being and all the world hates you and so you might as well put a gun to your head but yeah i mean i don't know maybe we should again i don't start i don't recommend starting there that's like that's the joke one right that's the one that you go to last i recommend starting with the easy stuff okay i just i cut myself shaving let's start there that's a much easier one to handle right right? That definitely is. You don't want to go dark. So, you know, like I said, we had the gal from Black Joy on. And I never really thought about it.

It kind of struck me. She's like, you should find the joy in your life. I need to put like a tab on my thing. Find the positive today. There is a lot of positive. You know what? One of the things that makes it challenging for us, there are so many more words about negative stuff than there are positive stuff. You can practically put all the positive words on one side of a sheet of paper.

Wow. But all the negative words, they'll fill up a dictionary. I'm looking at your website. Do you have co-hosts, it looks like? I do. Yes. I'm currently down three. Generally speaking, I have two per day. So when I'm up to full speed, I have a total of 10, two for every day, five days a week. So do you, is the co-host usually on the show with you and then you have your guests? We have all of it. Yes. We actually had not been doing guests up until this past January, late January. And then I decided guests are good. I mean, I had given

no attention at all to building the podcast. You were talking earlier, you got to build the audience up. And you're right. You got to build the audience up. I hadn't been doing that. I was just enjoying doing the podcast. I didn't care. People were showing up. Hey, okay.

I got listeners. This is wonderful. I didn't worry about it. But I said, yeah, I should really be building this up. So, okay. I started bringing the guests on. But yeah, we kind of mix and match it. And the nice thing for my co-hosts is they want to show up most of the time, but people

have different schedules and so forth. Things happen. So if a co-host can't make it for a day, that's okay. I got another co-host and I got a guest. We're fine. No problem at all. So it works very well for everybody involved. It's a very relaxed atmosphere because now everybody isn't thinking, oh my God, I got to be there for the episode today or I'm going to get killed. It doesn't work that way. I think that's how we work. We're like, I want to rethink that one. I never had to be me i think one time just recently like two months ago or a month ago uh we had a late one somebody had scheduled at five o'clock and i went out into

traffic and was picking up a few things and then uh got stuck in traffic which i try to always avoid and uh didn't make it back in time and i somehow, because it was later than normal, I just totally spaced off the thing. And half an hour later, by the time I got, I mean, I wouldn't have been able to hit it anyway. But I think I've been the only one who doesn't show up on time. We haven't had a long, ever since we switched the format of the show about two or three years ago to have mostly authors and high BDS on. Before that, it was like tech CEOs.

And I think we used to have some coaches and people that wrote books that no one ever heard of. And they would never show up on time or sometimes they'd just blow up the whole show. And I'd just be like, are you fucking kidding me? But I never have that problem anymore. Good guests are really important. They are, no doubt about that. It works two ways, too, because

not only do you want the good guests because they're going to show up, but the good guests also makes for the interesting conversation. That's what makes the content work so well. So, yeah, you want it for both reasons. The journalists, they're always on time. They're always prepared. They have their stuff together. I remember we had someone from

CNN on, and I told her, your show's live and everything. She's like, you don't need to tell me that, dude. I do this on CNN, man. She says, I don't need to prep. I just go live. And I'm just like, tell people it's live so that we just tell people. We warn people.

Someone might decide to say, kill all the ducks or something. And you're just like, that's not going to go well with the duck people. You just put it on live air. Yep, there's a sad something. And you're just like, that's not going to go well with the duck people. You just blew it on live air. Yep. There you go. Any more you want to touch on, on what you do and how you do it? Actually,

I wanted to touch on something that was in your book because that's really what was the incentive for me to want to reach out to you in the first place. Beacons of leadership. It was your really big, big bestselling book. Never split the difference. No, I didn't do that book.

That's not me. That's the other boss. Yeah. I'm the Difference. No, I didn't do that book. That's not me. That's not you? I'm the original Chris Voss. He doesn't have a pug. Then I'll just attribute him to you. How about that? There you go. But anyway, it was a great quote from the book.

And apparently it was the number one highlighted passage for Kindle readers of the book. It said, research shows that the best way to deal with negativity is to observe it without reaction and without judgment, and then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate and solution-based thoughts. I thought to myself, wow.

I mean, because that's really not when you read the book, that's not what the book seems to be about. And then here's this quote coming out of it. And I think they could have said that on my show. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Have you had him on your show? could have said that on my show. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. Have you had him on your show?

I have not. No, no. So he's like, he charged like $30,000 an hour, 50,000 an hour or something. Like he's getting him for an hour. It's probably something else.

I didn't realize it was a different, different, uh, Chris. How many guys are there? No, there's, well,

there's three. Now there's a SNL guy. I think there's actually a musician on a thing. I started the Chris Voss brand in 2008. I own all the Chris Voss channels. The Chris Voss Twitter account's been suspended for following too many people. Oh, my gosh. Oh, dear.

But it had 200,000 followers before it went down. The Chris Voss Instagram, the Chris Voss LinkedIn. I own Chris Voss everything. And then his name is Christopher Voss. it went down uh the chris faust instagram the chris faust linkedin i own chris faust everything and then his name is christopher boss he came along in 2016 and he had no followers he had nothing going on i had all my awards for 50 and everything else and he wrote a book under my name and started causing a lot of confusion i can see that yeah i would not have expected there was more than one chris boss with the following and so forth. So that kind of out to him and said, dude, you've really screwed things up because everyone thinks I'm you. But since I own all the Chris Voss's, except

for the.com that had gotten away from us, uh, on the net and everything else, uh, I was like, people think I'm you and I'm getting all your deals and we only have speaking gigs. And, uh, we need to figure out some sort of gentleman's thing. And he ran off scared. When you steal from people, you just run off. So he ran off scared and wouldn't deal with it. So I just converted a lot of his business over the years and was like, Yeah, that's the way to do it.

I can speak. I've got more followers. Back then, I had more followers than him. He had 11,000 followers. But he's built in quite a career off of hijacking my things. I mean, I didn't plagiarize the idea. I apologize. I obviously should have done the homework a little bit better.

I really thought that you and he were the same guy. I'm mistaken. I'm sorry about that. The beautiful part is I've got a killer podcast that's much larger. You do. I love it. I love it. I'm just talking to you.

I'm getting the sense that you've got this really great sense of humor. It's a little bit DC at times, but it's cool. You like to go off into various directions. I love it. I love it. I'm just talking to you. I'm getting the sense that you got this really great sense of humor. It's a little bit DC at times, but it's cool. You like to go off into various directions. I love that. That's fabulous. Plus the beautiful part is I've got a huge amount of experience in entrepreneurism. So I'm going to write a ton of books on a lot of different things and I don't have to plagiarize the FBI manual to do what I do. So there's a joke for you. So give us your plugs one last time before we go out so people can find you on the interwebs. So it's LOAToday. The website is LOAToday.net, not surprisingly. And you can find us on all the platforms that podcasts are offered on, from the Spotify

down to the Lola's one. Just look for LOAToday and tune in and get your daily dose of happy, man, because, hey, we all need that lift. And let me tell you, this is the really big reason why you do it. When you get your daily dose of happy and you do it every single day, and not just from listening to my show, but from listening to Chris's show or anyone else's, just by continuously feeding your mind with all this really high-vibe stuff, guess what happens? Your life improves. In fact, it improves immeasurably.

In fact, it doesn't stopasurably. In fact, it doesn't stop improving. So yeah, please join us on the show. My, thank you. Uh, I will have all checking out.

Everyone go check out the website and, uh, download the show. You're on iTunes and Google play and everywhere. All those places. Yeah. I harden. I don't remember what all the names of them are anymore.

Do you? There's like cash box. You know, all of them them i haven't figured them all out yet i they just they add one like every other day or something pretty much yeah yeah but these days it's spotify and apple music or iphone i don't know apple podcast those are like the big players so it's funny the kids are really starting to listen on spotify like yeah oh yeah apple run for its money i'm really surprised, but what do I know? I think a lot of it is due to

the fact that Spotify has really adapted their platform to serve the needs of the kids who are into mixing music. Because that's the driving force behind it, right? It's the music. It isn't so much the voice, the talk show type formats like we do.

It's the music that's driving it. And they've done some really good things. I mean, are loving it so yeah they're congregating man and see where those kids are yeah we have more i need to have like 12 year old co-hosts on the chris voss show to appeal to the i've done that actually have you really not so much to appeal to the audience but just to have the conversation because my wife and i don't have kids i mean we've worked with kids and so forth but you kind of miss that connection, that conversation, learning about, because every single generation is a little bit different. You know, everybody comes along.

Every generation has its own thing. Like when I came from the baby boom generation, so my parents were growing up during the Great Depression and all that. So there was that thing that was going on. But every generation has its thing. And I think it's important to understand what the current generation's thing is and the way you do that is by talking to the current generation so yeah it was a really cool thing it was one of my co-hosts his daughter came on the show and actually the hardest part was getting her to talk she was very quiet but when she said something

you listened you listened because you realized she really had something to say yeah i think i would call i think i would make that a separate show and I would call it the get off my lawn show. Okay. That might be a fun time. One of those neighbors. You're the guy down the street. Oh yeah.

Don't go, don't go to his house for Halloween. Yeah. I didn't have kids either. I mean, I like kids, especially if they're like adult where you can talk to them and stuff and you can reason with them,

be anything in diapers that I can't like, Hey, stop shitting on the floor or something like that where we can't we can't come to an agreement communication wise not really into that tell you something though i'll tell you about those little kids the ones that can't even talk yet if you're willing to take the time to just kind of be there with them and pay attention to them you can learn amazing things from them. Truly amazing things. And if you think about it, it actually makes sense. The kids today, for instance, you hand them an iPad

and they instantly know how to use it, right? You hand them a computer and they instantly know how to handle it. It's not hard for them. They just kind of absorb it through their fingertips. That's a generational thing. The generations pick up. Oh yeah. I mean, there are a whole bunch of theories about how that happens, but I really do believe generations pick up knowledge from the previous generations and so each generation has more and more information so it really does us well to pay attention to see what they have to tell us and to listen outside of our normal frames of reference the ones that we would normally say oh that's a bunch of bullshit actually listen to what they have to say because very often if you actually are willing to listen to it you can pick stuff up you hadn't even thought about before i just googled it there is a get off my

lawn podcast already somebody's done one you can name it something i don't know if it's the same format but uh what are you stupid kids doing yeah get off my lawn that's it uh but yeah i just haven't come on explain tiktok to me there is a I don't know anyone can explain TikTok, to be honest. I'm not sure there's an explanation for that one. Seriously. I mean, TikTok is basically get on there and try to do the same thing that everybody else is challenging you to do. That's TikTok.

Pretty much, yeah. There is one funny channel that a kid has, and he calls it the talk to a Gen Z channel or something like that. And he's like a Gen Y, Gen Z-er. He's like in his teens or something. And he's got this Gen Z dad who's like me, only with a beard and kind of more Harley-ish. And he's got like a shop in his thing.

He's always working on stuff. And so he likes to go in and bug his dad and say stupid shit to his dad. And his dad just goes off the rails. Like, are you fucking with me right now? I'm done. He's an instigator. That's what he is.

But his thoughts of Gen Z, and so our conversation between Gen Z and Gen Y, and it's really a funny channel to watch because you're like, man, this is why I didn't have children. At least now you know. Hey, you've got clarity in your life. Oh, I knew for a long time. They're good people. They are. Man, this is why I didn't have children. At least now you know. Hey, you've got a clarity in your life. Oh, I knew for a long time.

I didn't want to. They're good people. They are. It's kind of, I don't know what else. I can't make a joke of that. But it's kind of like other things. It's good for people, but not me. And that actually is a very important point.

I mean, you're making a joke, but that's a very important point. It is. Because it's good for you. That goes back to what I was talking about earlier, right? How many people don't really know what they want what you want yeah you're very clear about it that's why you're in this great space doing this podcast you love you got this nice audience you're happy with your life because you know what you want you took the time to figure that out that you're actually a model for why it is people should be asking themselves that question more often what is it that i really want which is funny because most people tell me i'm a model for why people shouldn't have children

or why people like me should not have children they're like yeah you're we're okay with you not having children christian the fact that you didn't breed is just fine with everybody on the planet but i seem to meet a lot of people but there's another example what i'm talking about they're focusing on what they don't like you're focusing what you like they're focusing what they don't like see what i mean It works that way. I think some people focus on autopilot. Some people don't quite. Until they have five kids

and they're like, this is not the best idea. This isn't what I had in mind. What did you have in mind? I'm not sure. I thought this would be really fun and easy. You're just like, what drugs were you on? It's been wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you for coming on.

We certainly appreciate it, man. Thank you for having me on. This has been really great. Thank you for letting me spout my stuff about LOA today and so forth. It's been really a pleasure. So thank you. There you go. And guys, be sure to go to youtube.com, Fortuness Chris Foss, hit the bell notification button.

Go to goodreads.com, Fortuness Chris Foss. See everything we're reading and reviewing over there. Go to all the different groups we have on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, all those different places. The LinkedIn newsletter is really important to subscribe to. That thing goes out every day. It's got all the best stuff on it. It's like the best of the

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