Josh: Ok, we are here today, with Dr. Chris Neck. He is a university master teacher, an associate professor of Management at Arizona State University, ??06:37 school business. He’s a fitness expert, a successful published author and so more. Chris has a great story and hopefully today we gonna share some great tips about how we can became better leader. So, I am… Welcome, Chris. Thank you again for your time. I’m really excited to have you on this interview.Chris:  I, I’m… Pleasure being here, Josh. I am looking forward to the interview.Josh:    Sounds good. Sounds good. So just one more time: sound check. Can you hear everything over there? It’s pretty good? 

Chris:    Everything’s good.

 

Josh:  Sounds good. And actually I won’t reveal what you’re actually doing on your end right now. Yeah, we’re over the phone right now, we are doing an interview over phone and Chris is actually doing something, but I’ll wait to share that till we get to the question. But, there’s a little secret for you guys that’s going on right now over the interview so… I guess I just start with the first question. You know, tell us a bit about yourself and what inspired you into doing what you do?

Chris: Oh, Josh, we would have to… that would be a four-hour interview.

 

Josh:    (laughter)

 

Chris:  I’ll sum it up. You know, I believe in Confucius’ quote, “Find a job you love and you’ll never have to work another day in your life”. And you know, in early age I remember thinking to myself, you know, man, I didn’t want a real job. And I define a real job is, you know, I remember seeing my parents and friends of my parents who didn’t really like their jobs and they lived for the weekends. And I remember I picked a major when I was in college and ???08:35 more for where the jobs were as opposed to what I love. And I remember after I’d graduated from college I was working for a big oil company in Texas and I remember sitting at my desk thinking, you know, “This is it. You get an hour for lunch, you got to punch your clock at 7 in the morning, you get ?? 08:59 weeks worth of vacation.” I said, “No way”. So I went back to school and tried to figure out what I wanted to do. Got my MBA. And in the process of getting my MBA, I was a graduate assistant working for a professor who happen to get sick and he asked to take his graduate class even though I wasn’t supposed to. He was in a bind and I taught his leadership class one night. I might haven’t been… I was green and not very confident, I remember thinking to myself, “WOW! This… This is great! This is fun! This is exciting! This is different!” I mean it really kind a plan it to see 09:40 And in terms of the teaching aspect of my job… You know I’ve always been interested in, from a little kid, I’m a long-distance learner, really started running at the high school and college and all I’ve been interested in was the power of mind and performance. And when you bridge the two, teaching and research, I just felt, I realized, “Hey, I need to be a professor”. And so I pursued PhD and, you know, that was years ago, in late 80’s. And I was a professor of Management at Virginia, Tex for about 17 years and a tenure at Arizona State for about 3 now. But I really just love to teach and I love to investigate and explore, you know, what makes people succeed and what doesn’t. And I really enjoy trying to motivate people to succeed. So, I guess to answer your question, Josh, it was kind of a combination of fear that, man, I don’t want to be stuck in a job I don’t enjoy, and also I want to say, a little luck because I… you know, if that professor wouldn’t have gone sick, I don’t know if I ever would’ve been propelled to be professor, be in a classroom teaching. And so I guess as Oprah once said, “No one ever stumbles upon across something sitting down”. So I kind of stumbled upon that. And I am right now at the point of my career where my main mission is to help as many people as I can achieve their goals whatever that goals they want to do.

 

Josh:    That’s excellent, that is beautiful! That’s really good! You know we have a lot of young entrepreneurs listening and a lot of young people in general, we help students trying to find their passion, exactly what it is. And you know, you’ve find yours, we can hear it in your voice, in the passion that you’re having doing what you are doing and that’s some ??12:00 Could you share any tips with us, of how to help, you know, find our passion or maybe kind a put us in the right direction so that we can also, you know, maybe stumble upon something, or say, “Hey, you know what? I really like doing this!” Or like you did, “I don’t really like doing this! So I am going to reposition.” And can you share any tips about how to find this passion and how to put ourselves in this position?

 

Chris:  Oh, absolutely yes. My first tip is… and I… in lot of my writings I shared it. And anyone who comes in my class, today is you and we cover the issue. But really, you know, first of all, my first tip is: Don’t put pressure on yourself! A lot of people go, “Man, I got to figure out what I love to do by the time I’m 22, or by the time I graduate, by the time I am 18.” You know, it’s life-long process; I am still figuring it out, you know. So… And the more I do, the more I figure out what I don’t like and what I do like and I find my focus. But real simply, the first tip is to think, ”Hey, what?” I like to say, ”Start with your strength. What are you… What are you good at?” One way to figure that out, typically, is to think about what you enjoy doing. I have people, students, fill out an exercise in my class where they try to think of the time in their lives, and I don’t care if they were working at McDonald’s when they were 15, or if they sold lemonade at a lemonade stand when they were six. No, something that they did when they just felt excited about. You know, when it was just fun to do. They would do it for free. And at all times it helps you think about what you enjoy doing and think about what you’re good at. But really just to simply answer your question think about something you’re good at. Because usually if you are good at something, you enjoy doing it. And if you can figure that out, then try to figure out, ”OK. What is something that interest you?” And if you can apply that strength, or one of your strengths to your interests, hey you’ve got a pretty good passion. You know, I’ll give you one, I’ll just pick off the top of my head. You know, well, that apply to my own life. You know, ”What am I good at?” One of the things I’m good at is, um… I’m running fast and running long distances and knowing how to do it. And another one of my strengths is helping people. Well, you know, I recently noticed that at my kids’ school they needed a cross-country couch, someone to volunteer to help the middle-school students run cross-country. And I went, “Heck, man, you know! I am good at running, I want to help people. I can do that and it’s only a couple of hours per week.” And I absolutely love it. Love t!

 

Josh:    Wow!

 

Chris:  That’s not my job, but I mean I’m just giving you the example. You know, what am I good at? I’m good at running, I’m good at helping people and here is an interest or a need and I can feel it. And so I’m passionate about it. So, if you can think of something you’re good at and apply that to one of your interests, which would be running in my case. I’m good at helping people, I’m good at running. The interest is running in general and damn, here’s an itch I’m feeling. So if you could do that, you’re in good shape. A lot of entrepreneurs that I talked to they start out and they fizzle because their strength is, they’re motivated, they have tried… and they apply that to make money. But the problem with that is that they miss that middle part, or even before that: what is their interest. And the interest if it’s just financial reasons that I’m seeking, that in my research and my experience suggest it will kind of wade off. It’s kind of like a quote, ”Who climbs the ladder of success, only to realized that the ladder was propped up against the wrong wall.” If the wall is only financial reason, my experience makes me to believe that, in the long run, motivation will fade. There’s nothing wrong with making money and making lots of it but when you ??17:00  it usually has to be a by-product.

 

Josh:      Right, right, I definitely agree with that. I… You know, passion comes first, profit follows. I really believe in that and you shared some really awesome tips. So, those of you listening, think about, you know, what you enjoy doing. Chris said something that you’re good at, that you enjoy doing and consider a good way to figure that out is to apply something that you good to something you’re interested in. So, a really awesome tip. So, you’ve mentioned, Chris, that you’re good at running. I’d like to reveal now actually what you are doing on your end which will help lead me into my next question. Chris has a book Fit to Lead and he has a new version coming out in May, so I suggest you guys pick that up. And if you could, you know, first reveal what you’re doing on your end. And two, tell us a bit about that book. And then three, if you can share something about how important fitness is to young entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs in general, or someone that’s in leadership position, and some tips you can share with us to help us perform better at what we do with fitness.

 

Chris:  Oh, absolutely Josh. That’s a… I’ll try to answer all that. First of all, a big part of my research  looks at the impact of diet and exercise on performance, and chiefly entrepreneurial and executive performance. I have been running for years, I’ve run marathons, ultramarathons. I don’t run fast but I can run a long way. But really the key is it doesn’t have to be a marathon to enjoy the benefits of fitness. Actually, it’s the other way round. There is Dr Kenneth Cooper who was pioneer in term of aerobics in the 60′s. He said if you exercise more than 30 minutes, you’re doing it for more than fitness. Well, I completely agree with that. But I think you need a little bit more. But my point is, you don’t need a whole lot to keep fit. What my research, Josh, has clearly shown is that entrepreneurs and executives who find the time to exercise, to watch their diet and just to be more fit in general have more energy, are less stressed, and um, there’s really a research that ties that into the organizational performance. But it’s just very, very important. And, you know, a lot of your audience is younger and it may not be, ”Hey, you know, I’ve got all the energy in the world!” Well, that’s true, but it doesn’t take long for, at the age of your twenties and as you see your thirties, to see genetics not caring a day. When you and your team you can maybe eat cratty, not really exercise and your genetics will make you think, ”Hey, man, I don’t even do that kind of stuff. I’ve got all the energy in the world. My weight is where I want it to be.” But as you get older, genetics stops and it’s your behavior that dictate your fitness. And so, whether it is 20-minutes-a-day walking fast, briskly… actually, you know, a formalized workout program and if you go to my website chrisneck.com you’ll see the book Fit to Lead, like I said a new version, comes out in May. And…  Outlines to very simple plans if you’re traveling, and really outlines of very simple things to do both your diet, to help improve your diet. So, just, the first step Josh is being aware of what you put in your body, the fuel you put into your body. And then it also takes sometimes during the day, it may be mandatory, when you get some time to exercise. Like I said, even if it’s 20 or 30 minutes a day while you’re on the phone or before you leave for the day or late at night when you’re watching the news, or listening to news. It pays off. Fitness pays off.

 

Josh:    Excellent, excellent, yes. You guys listening check out chrisneck.com and actually on there, I was on there yesterday, and I went to the video section and there’s a really cool video of Chris  rapping, he’s a… performing… He’s performing in front of his class and it’s really him, and this again you see how cool it is to really enjoy what you do and be able to connect with people like Chris ??22:11. There’s a lot of awesome resources on Chris’s webpage, that’s chrisneck.com. And I just picked up a copy of Fit to Lead on Amazon and I’m going to be looking forward to that new edition as well. But, you know, I recently, in the last three weeks, that I’ve been working out every day, or five days a week and hiking on the weekends. And I realized myself… You know, my excuse was I never had time, and you know, I’m running a business, I go to school, I have all these things going on. And you know, maybe I’ll, you know, do a few push-ups, or… so as I can trick myself into thinking I was actually exercising. You know, I started to feel tired and this was a few months ago when I wasn’t eating as healthy as I should and I wasn’t exercising and it was really draining on me. And, you know, what you mention is so true because last three weeks I’ve been putting in about an hour, five days a week, nothing really tempt or crazy and I can do it in the morning and, you know, I just fell like I have more time in the day. I think that’s because, you know, I have more energy, the things that I do, I feel better about myself and you know, I signed back to blogging, what I thought I didn’t have time. And it’s funny that I was making that excuse and I started working out, and kind of taking care of myself better, it’s like I have more time. And that is so cool. You know, especially as young entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs in general, and especially people in leadership position where we can be washed out with a lot of stress with just day-to-day activity. And I think we already mentioned this vital point, I see as an investment, I really do. And putting a little bit of time in each day is given me, you know, two hours of day of extra energy. And obviously more time in my life. I’m going to take better care of myself, I’m going to live longer, I’m going to live better, I’m going to enjoy my life more. So those are…

 

Chris:  Yeah, well, a couple of things, Josh. I’ll make sure you don’t go longer than you though you would. You’re going to be cutting me off, man.

 

Josh:    No, no. (laughter)

 

Chris:   In that point of the book when you get it is that, you know, people say, ”I don’t have time for exercise.” Well actually exercise adds time to your day. Really, because like you said, it gives you more energy. I love people who tell me, ”Oh, must be nice to go to lunch and run for an hour!” And I’m thinking, ”Yeah, you know.” And they are thinking, ”Well, I’ve got time to do it, you know. I’m not too big. Plus I don’t have much on my plate.” And what they don’t realize is my competitive advantage. I know that if I go work out and I’m gonna refuse the… some of the… one of the popular book that were out recently that said Never Eat Alone. My statement is Never Run Alone. And that is my lunch time specifically when I run. And people say,  ”You’ve missed out a lot of networking opportunities eating lunch with people.” And I really don’t. If I’m running alone the benefits part, the networking that I do and I try to run with people, people who, you know, just use different conversation when running. Some of my greatest networking contact and opportunity comes through running or hiking or something like that. So I really benefit. To the other point I add… if…  a lot of your audience are, if not all of them, are entrepreneurs. We all know that entrepreneurs live and die on innovation and creativity. Well, you know, you will get some recent creativity research, and you know, it really shows, you really can’t look into that myth of, whether or not a myth, the stories that say people… some of the most brilliant ideas came when people were in the shower or when they were doing something not related to their job. Well, running is really, for me, where I get a lot of my creative ideas because the brain, whenever a part of my brain is working on the task, you know, it stopps, it gives my mind time to float, to explore and so. And that’s where another thing I  think is fit for entrepreneurs in terms of exercise is stopping the brain. The other thing that I want to mention is diet. You know, big part of the exercise is physiological but stress, heart rate, all those kinds of things, how you feel, what diet. The old-school of thought is diet was 20% of that equation of how you feel and exercise is 80%. Well, I don’t believe that. I believe it’s reverse where diet is more like 70 to 80% and exercise is 20%. Because people… You see that all the time. They go to work out for an hour and they’re like, ”I’ve worked out for an hour, I’m gonna go eat a pizza.” Well, you know, you got to work out for about 5 hours to burn off the pizza. So, it’s not really gonna make that much of a difference in terms of your core intake. And though, you know, I have found that if I eat correctly, not a lot of junk, minimum amount of calories to keep me functioning, getting my nutrition, I am more alert, I’m thinking better, my mind’s more clear. So… And it’s difficult to do. We live in a society where food is entertainment, food is not fuel, where we celebrate based on food and… or we heal ourselves emotionally based on food and… So it’s really a tough challenge. Both the exercise and the diet. The diet says, ”Hey!  Food is gonna to be fuel for me! I am not gonna eat because the clock said it’s the time to eat. I am gonna eat because I’m hungry and my body needs it.” Or I’m not gonna eat because I’m celebrating something. I’ll do something else. I’ll go for a run or buy a ??28:50 whatever. And I get in all these things and ?? 28:56 But it is, as you said, an investment. And you have to keep your body as you would your bank account. Would you let someone tell you what to do with your bank account. No, you wouldn’t. Would you let someone pressure you to take money out of your bank account? No, you wouldn’t. Well in the same way, you can’t let something pressure you not to exercise, or not to eat right, and it’s yours, and it’s an investment. As you can see I’m passionate about the topic. If any of your readers or listeners, you know, if you have questions for me, you go to my website, all my contact information is there and I’d be happy to answer anything I can. I’m not a physician, but I’ve researched fitness and wellness extensively years and lot of my co-authors are physicians.

 

Josh:    Excellent. And, I mean, I mean, you live it. I mean, it’s not that you just research, you live it. That’s something I was talking to one of my buddies the other day about, you know, his doctor is, you know, overweight and it’s hard to listen to someone, especially if you are in a leadership position that… it doesn’t really take care of their body, just, it’s… It’s not… It’s something that maybe happens subconsciously. But even I catch myself sometimes I see maybe a motivational speaker that, you know, are talking about being a better person, you know, self help type of gurus that really don’t help themselves. You know, it’s really hard to listen someone, to take someone’s advice seriously, especially like, I mean, a doctor that is overweight yet is telling someone to cut back on the salt, or cut back on the sweets. And I think that’s really important in leadership positions, and especially for a, I mean, for anyone that’s in front of people, with employees or with… even if you are an entrepreneur or ??31:03 or whoever it is. You want to look as good as possible, you want to feel as good as possible and you want to convey that. And I think that’s definitely, definitely important because, you know, we tend to lose ourselves, you know, day to day, as Americans, you know, we have all these things going on. But I like your point what you said about building it into what we’d do rather than say, ”Oh, it’s 10 o’clock, I have to eat now.” Or just, ”Oh, something good happened, let’s go out and eat.” And then, ”OK, let’s eat again.” And actually I find myself  doing that sometimes because I, you know, networking with people gets, ”Oh, let’s have lunch here. Let’s have dinner.” Sometimes I’ll catch myself having, you know, two lunches in the same day just because I was, you know, going networking and since I’m talking, I’m not paying attention to what I’m eating, so I’m, you know, grabbing different food that I know I shouldn’t be eating. But I like that, it’s not just Never Eat Alone, it’s actually Never Run Alone. I really like that, that’s awesome. So, you know, everyone in the audience take that and think about how you can incorporate just some exercise on what you are doing or watching what you are eating so you can them become a better leader and better entrepreneur. And use Chris’s advice and never run alone. Invite people that you like to network with. And if they do exercise, exercise that. And…

 

Chris:  Sorry.

 

Josh:    What’s that?

 

Chris:  I’ll but in, Josh.

 

Josh:    Sure.

 

Chris:  I deal with the same thing, you know. I just had last week two CEOs of different companies want to meet with me and they said ”Hey, let’s do lunch.” I felt the pressure and I said, ”You know what, I work out typically at lunch time, I can meet you for a diet soda in the morning, or in the afternoon.” Or, you don’t have to suggest to run because it might intimidate them more. Say, ”Hey, would you be interested in going for a walk?” And I know your blog goes out all across the country, but especially for those people in Phoenix, we have no excuse for being inside, I mean the weather is always great. So, even if it’s, ”Let’s go for a walk while we talk.” You know, it’s huge. And here, think about it Josh, here is someone like me who… I teach the stuff, I write about it, I’m feeling the pressure to go to lunch when I really don’t want to. And here is someone successful like you who is doing all these great things and you’re eating two lunches that you don’t want to. So, you know, that’s… that actually tells you the pressure on people who do not take care of their body. Like I said, if somebody in your network is saying ”Josh, we should see your bank account and give me some of your money”, you wouldn’t do it, you are not gonna do it. But you eat two lunches. So you are giving your bank account more importance than your body. And so my challenge to your listeners would be, ”Hey, stop it! Stop it now!” And you know, it stems from society, you know. We don’t wanna hurt our mom’s feelings so we are gonna eat that cake or her food, maybe because ?? 34:29 our spouses or our fathers or whoever. And it’s a cultural thing. You got to take charge because there’s a reason why so much of our society is overweight and out of shape, because of all the pressure that’s there. And my challenge to your listeners is, hey there is an easy way to gain a competitive advantage. There is an easy way for you to make someone think. When you go ”Hey, I’d like to do lunch with you but I try to use my lunch to go for a walk. Why don’t you grab an energy bar with me and we’ll go walk and have lunch while we are walking.” Man, hey you’d stand out to me if that was me! Like I said you were so right and you hit it on the head. Here is someone successful like you that’s feeling the pressure. And so you imagine 90% of your listeners are feeling the same. And you just got to stand up to it, because your body… you only get one of them, right? I mean, unless you are a bionic man or something.

 

Josh:    (laughter) That’s great, that’s awesome. You know, next thing I want to transition into and we skype talked about your book Fit to Lead. And I’ve added it onto… Everyone listening, try to go to chrisneck.com under the Books tab. I’ve also added it to my blog under ”Best Business Books”, it’s right up there on the list now. So you can go out and find it, check it out, it’s definitely worth reading. And, you know, Chris has already extended his contact information on his website if you have any questions regarding that. But Chris, you are a successful published author and a lot of my listeners are, you know, looking to either writing a book now or would eventually like to write a book. And I have two questions for you. First is, what inspired you to start publishing books and second, what advice could you give to anyone hoping to publish their first book?

 

Chris:      Um, that’s a good question. Well, my first book that ever got published, interesting. Early on, in the late 80′s when I started teaching and was working on my PhD, I started writing these motivational stories and poems to close every one of my classes. And over time people started asking me for them, copies of them. And then I started teaching… some of my classes at Virginia Tech were over 2500 students at one time. And when you know, while I don’t mind handing out my poems, 2500 is a lot. And so I approached a publisher and said, ”Hey, you know, what if I package these in a book, would you be interested in publishing it?” And they said, ”Absolutely!” And that book, I’ll give a flog. Actually I only get a flog because it’s my personal favorite. It’s one of those books, Josh, you can read on toilet, read in the airport, read 5 minutes before your big, important presentation. You know, you can pick it up and read it any time. I just a… a local high school here in Arizona, I spoke to their basketball team before the State championship. And I got an email this morning from one of the young men who said hey because I gave them copies of this book Medicine for the Mind, only words to help your story. So he read it in the locker room before the game to pump them up and it gave them goose bumps, just read it. So that’s how I kind of got started in the publishing world. And I started years ago, before the Internet, before the day of self publishing on the Web and that kind of stuff. So I guess… But my first advice… Well, the other thing is, as I started becoming a prolific researcher in the area of leadership and motivation, you know, I had stuff to write about and I approached publishers. But really the ??39:00 of it is, you know,  every… let’s say it this way, Josh, everybody wants to write a book. If we could put our wants and desires in our resumes we’ll all be superstars. But the people who actually do it are a few far and in between. There’s a big difference between wanting and doing it. And my advice… You know, you don’t need a publisher anymore. I mean, that’s nice but with online bookstores and being able to put your book in e format… Publishers are nice but it’s often the case it’s more cost advantage and temptatious to self publish it. And, you know, maybe for about $5000, $10000 you can self publish a book, get a lot of copies printed and good marketing behind it. And you actually might be better off going with a big time publisher like Simon and Schuster and St Martin, something like that. And I’ve had experience with both major publishers and, and I’m actually contemplating self publishing my next book, just because I think it might be a better way to go, but… Another point to make, though, is don’t write a book to get rich, because very few people do. You know, write a book because you have a message. And it’s also a little book as a great marketing tool for you and your business. Then you have a book like a business card. And if you are thinking of writing a book, which you really… you know, marketing it is huge, but you also… the first thing you wanna ask is, you know, “Why is my book different from anything that’s out there?” You know, know what’s out there in terms of competition. You know, so Josh if you wanna write a book on being a young entrepreneur, well then, why is your book gonna be different than say Helmer Johnson’s book or the 50 other books written by young entrepreneurs right now. Now, what is unique about it, that you get more hands on ??41:15 stories. Whatever it might be, is, you know, what’s different? But my, my advice, and it’s gonna seem simplistic, is if you wanna write a book, just start, you know, make an outline. Well first of all, think why it’s different, then make an outline and then start writing. And, you know, it doesn’t… the old, the old joke is how do you become an expert on something is you write a book. And, you know, there is… you can Google, there is, you know, a plethora of self publishing options out there. If you wanna go the publishing route, you basically just need to do a little Google search and you’ll find how to submit your book to the mainstream publishers. And it’s as simple as that, not very difficult. The difficult part is writing it and selling it, that’s the difficult part.

 

Josh:     Excellent, excellent. And I… Specially for those listeners who are planning on starting a business or have that business ideas floating around your mind. One thing I always say is, you know, “You don’t know unless you go out and try.” I mean, it’s… you gotta go out and do it. Action is what separates regular entrepreneurs from successful entrepreneurs. People that’d love to be entrepreneurs but don’t take that step and make a planned action and follow through with it. I like what you said about just getting started with it, putting together an outline and actually doing it. Right now, I’m actually writing my first book and I’m using the “iBook Author” app that came out a couple of months ago, from Apple. Which is really, really cool because it allows you to add in, like drag and drop multimedia. So I can drag and drop videos in there, I can put pictures, images, like all sorts of different cool little things. It’s a really cool app and it’s 100% free. So I suggest you guys check it out if you wanna go that self publishing route. And I liked the point that Chris brought up about… self publishing is becoming really big. And it really is, with the Kindle out, you know, you have the iPad out and a lot of ?? 43:40 are ?? fans, so I think that, you know, looking out in ?? how many people have these tablets, these iPads, these Kindles, where you can put out a book and put it right on the iBook store and instantly gain all that marketing exposure where… Sometimes I think, I think people writing a book might get kind of intimidated by these big publishing companies or working out deals with them or ”Oh, I’m not ready for that.” Follow Chris’s advice and just put together outline and start doing it. And, you know, we all here for help and advice and Chris has some awesome resources on his site, you guys can check out several books that he’s and ?? and get some tips to see how’s he’s done things and how he’s been successful and follow in that type of mindset. So, you know, I have…

 

Chris:  No, let me, let me chime in…

 

Josh:    Sure, yeah.

 

Chris:   The barriers, power, the word “power” is defined in the ability to get things done the way one wants them to be done. Well, the power used to be all in the publisher’s hands. The barriers to enter a publishing writing a book was hard. Now, the power… anyone can get things done the way they want them to be done. They just need an iPhone app or a Kindle app, or something like that to write a book and get it out there for people to buy. So the power has shifted from the big time publishers to the… to the authors in many cases. So you are exactly right, there is really, there is no intimidation now to start a book. If I could say, you get and app and you follow that and you write a book. If it’s a hit, it’s a hit. If it’s not, you have a document to show to your kids and their kids and their kids about what your passion is about, so… I just wanted to follow up on that.

 

Josh:   Oh, that’s great, that’s awesome. So, you know, Chris, you’re very successful and I ??45:58 what you do and, you know, I want, I want to talk about, if you’d like to share what have been some of your failures… Or what are your failures or something you learned from them, you know? I think a lot of us are afraid to fail and that kind of fend us off from doing anything at all and taking actions. What kind of advice would you give to us that, you know, might have, you know? We are afraid to do something, we are afraid to start a business, we are afraid to, you know, apply to this certain job or get into this career or whatever it is. Maybe you can explain what were your failures and what you’ve learned from them and cut us some tips to kind of remove us from that, from being scared to act because of failure.

 

Chris:    Well, Josh, let me add. Success can often at times be a great band aid. And what I mean by that is when you are doing well, it’s easy to cover up flaws or deficiencies or things I need to do better. It’s when things are going poorly is when I usually learn the most. And that’s actually true in history, with great artists and sculptors and musicians and writers. Usually their best work is… has come in down time. So, my point with that is that kind of I’ve learned… and running long distances help me with that is that I know that in the long run there are gonna be times when I’m gonna wonder why the hell am I doing this. And I don’t feel like running anymore. And if I can just work through those times, it might be 5 minutes later, it might be 3 miles later, I’m running effortlessly and so I realize with time when I’m not succeeding at doing what I’m doing, you know, that that’s gonna pass. I’ve just gotta look into what I’m doing. Anyway, I don’t know if it’s a failure, but I had to deal with this a lot and ??48:07 entire education, and I succeeded sometimes and sometimes I hadn’t. But it’s realizing that no matter what you do, no matter what is, you have to be your internal barometer. Because not everyone is gonna like you, not everyone is gonna like your idea. I’m not saying to stick your head in the sand. I’m not saying that if you have an idea and no one is buying it then maybe you need to relook at your product, repackage it or something. But just realize that you’ve gotta be your internal barometer, you’ve gotta be your judge, you’ve gotta be the guy that says, “Hey, I’m responsible for my life. I’m responsible for living my purpose and my mission and it doesn’t matter if other people are along on the journey.” That to me really is the key lesson to learn. One. Two. Is this really more failures? I guess it’s more to find the things I learn from my failures. Two. You really need to set your priorities. You know, we talked about doing an exercise. But to me, if you have more than three priorities you don’t have any. And you’ve gotta say, “Hey, these are the three most important things for me!”. For example: my family, my business and then my career. So if I have a choice between attending my son’s football game and a very important networking opportunity, my son is gonna get the knot, OK? Because he is first, family is first. And I realize the consequences. But hey, I’ll live with those concequences, because I’m making that decision. And you can’t always make that decision, I realize that. Sometimes, you know, if you’ve got your son’s football game and you’ve got a meeting with your banker whether your business goes under or not. Well if your business goes under it’s gonna kill your family. I realize there are some ??50:24 But my point is – set priorities. And let’s say you have three priorities and there is something that comes up that you are really not into people are asking you to do. You just don’t do it. And that’s just it, you know! Otherwise, you are having too many… you are kind of like a piece of drift wood getting battered around the ocean. Bam, bam, bam! So I guess those are two big tips that I learned from rejection and 3 is “stay in the game”. There is plenty of marathons I dropped out of, there is plenty of long runs that I didn’t finish, there is plenty of books that I had to stop or articles I was working on that didn’t work. There is plenty of presentations that I left, that just didn’t connect. And I learned from all of them, and I stayed in the game. And, you know, I think perfection is overrated. I think you give it your best shot and then you go up for the next time, man, you know.

 

Josh:   That’s great!

 

Chris:  You know, you’ve gotta have fun with it. I don’t know if that was really your question.

 

Josh:   No, that’s perfect, that’s great. Yeah, awesome. So, you know, now I’ve got kind of a little, a little interesting question here. If it was possible, if there was such a thing as time machine with which you could travel back, is there something that you would do differently?

 

Chris:   That’s too funny you ask that. You know, I don’t live with a rear view mirror because I think everywhere you are now is because of what you did, the lessons you have learned. I don’t believe there is one right path. You take a path, you learn from it, you don’t like it and you get on another path. But interesting. Yeah, you know and it’s not directly career related or related to this phone call, what we talked about. But we had a… my kids… my wife and I had a conversation the other day and somebody, I think it was my daughter asked if I had any regrets. And I said “You know, I do.”. When I was in high school in maybe a third grade… When I was in high school there was this one kid that everybody picked on, and picked on him bad. I really didn’t pick on him but I didn’t do anything about it, all right. Didn’t do anything about it. Well this guy grew up into a pretty successful guy. But when I look back on it my regret is that I didn’t step in and say, “You know what guys, this is wrong. This is wrong”. I wish I had the maturity back then, Josh, to step in and say “Hey, live John alone. This is not right”. And I didn’t do that. And I’m gonna jump real quick. You asked about failures. I distinctly remember in high school, and this was a big lesson that I carry with me to this day. And this was years ago. You are a young guy, you can remember high school from last year or the year before. So I remember being at the Seniors Honors Banquet and everybody’s getting trophies for doing stuff and I didn’t have anything. And I was realizing and thinking, “Man, you know what? I don’t like this feeling and I’m not gonna let it ever happen again.” Where I did not maximize my efforts to do something, to make a difference. I pretty much just ??54:26 by through high school. And I never, I’ll always remember that, I will… my mantra is definitely to seize the day. And I talked about that in “Medicine for the Mind”. But I, you know, I’m not gonna let opportunities to go by anymore. And you know, that was in 1982, Josh. And that lesson is still with me today. If there is any lesson for failures that I learned is  “Hey, don’t let those opportunities pass that you may be having, you know, seize the day.” Because once they are gone, man, they are gone.

 

Josh:    That’s excellent. Well Chris, I wanna thank you so much for your time spending with us and all those wonderful tips you shared with us again. Try to check out Chris Neck on his website – chrisneck.com. And I’ve also added a couple of his awesome books onto my best business books list which is on my blog. And if you have any questions, you can reach out to either one of us. Chris, any last tips or advice for audience.

Chris: You know, I’ll leave you with a qoute. Someone once said “If you are not afraid to face the music, you may one day lead the band.” I hope that some of the information that we shared today gives you some music, so to speak, to lead the band and all aspects of your life.

Josh:     Excellent. Thank you so much, Chris.

Chris:    All right, Josh, have a good one, man. Let me know if I can help you in any kind of way.

Josh:     Sounds good. Thank you so much, Chris. Talked to you soon

Chris:   Bye, Josh.

Josh:     Bye, bye.