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In this episode, Kathryn interviews Chris Ross and they go way beyond Chris’ success in business, which is just the tip of the iceberg of who he is. We get down to what makes Chris, Chris- his me-ness, his special sauce.

This is a real and raw conversation in which this very private person lets us dive in to the depth of his essence as a human being.

Meet Chris Ross

Chris Ross is one of the world’s leading expert on high-performance sales teams. He specializes in training international business executives on his “Win-Win Effect,” which benefits both sides of the buyer-seller relationship.

Having always been fascinated with Broadcasting & Media, Chris has quickly turned his Network Corporation into a podcasting powerhouse. His newest venture is Winject, Inc, the home of his Top-Ranked Podcast Show, The Win-Win Effect & Winject Radio; and he has begun adding other shows to the network to help grow their listenership

Check out Chris’ websites here and here.

In This Podcast

Summary

• The Win-Win Effect
• The dark times in Chris’ life
• What makes Chris, his “ME-ness”
• His newest BIG venture

The Win-Win Effect

The win-win effect is a human based code for human collaboration, particularly in business. Its foundation is collaboration in human interaction.

It requires a healthy amount of emotional intelligence and an overall goal of it being a win for all those involved. The only way to do that is to make a complete shift in living an abundant lifestyle, not just mindset. It’s a craft that Chris developed by parsing out wants, needs, and desires to ensure that companies and those enrolled in programs would all reap long-term benefits. Embracing his spiritual journey and putting the work into himself, Chris was able to then show up and serve as the better version of himself. Everyone wins.

The dark times in Chris’ life

As an outsider looking in, it’d seem like Chris had everything: money, a relationship, various properties and ventures. However, the relationship dissolved and he realized he lacked his own sanity and concise vision on what he really wanted. Chris would show up 100% in his businesses, deals, and jobs, but couldn’t put the same effort into his personal life. As a result, those in his personal life got what little energy was leftover and it wasn’t necessarily the best of Chris.

By doing the inner work in the darkness, when nobody was watching, Chris learned that he wouldn’t be exposed in the bright light. He was able to surrender control and started shedding anything that wasn’t serving him at that time. He learned to lean into emotions and ditch the ego-driven mentality. Chris was then able to add more things in. He viewed every day healing as a process and part of his journey.

What makes Chris, his “ME-ness”

Chris acknowledges that defining your competitive advantage can be a strenuous process. He vouches, though, some of the best manifestations can be birthed from the darkest moments and memories of our life. His older sister wasn’t able to speak or talk, so from a very young age, Chris would express himself to his sister through nonverbal communication.

Their connection was where Chris was able to hone in on his emotional intelligence, knowing exactly what his sister needed. Now he knows to pay some attention to what people say, but he’s intuitively able to pick up on their intentions based off their patterns of behavior. He’s able to cut through peoples’ barriers and get to the root of the problem.

His newest BIG venture

Chris has been podcasting, but wanted to make more of an impact through it. He’s known to have guests time and time again reflect during the interview that they haven’t been asked a question Chris has teed up for them. He’s honed in on that craft and over time realized how it can be challenging as a podcaster to get the right guests on the show.

Chris is building not just a network, but a community of podcasters and shows. He teaches them how to monetize their podcast and doesn’t charge them anything.

He hopes to take someone that has 10 people listening to them, for example, and getting them exposed to hundreds of millions of people through his network.

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Podcast Transcription

Kathryn:

Chris, I am so excited to have you on the show today. Thank you for being here. 

Chris:

I’m blessed. I should say thank you to you. I’m so excited and looking forward to this interview for quite a while since our last couple of conversations that we’ve had and know the time zone difference right now isn’t always the best thing in trying to figure out the right times to serve your audience because obviously I’m in London right now.

I’m thoroughly excited for the listeners are tuning in right now and listening to the show. I hope you guys can really take something away from this and implement in your life and hopefully serving in any kind of capacity. So thank you again. Appreciate it. 

Kathryn:

Absolutely. I know that you have had an amazing career so far. And I say so far because I know that you have so much left that you want to do, but take our listeners on a little bit of a timeline of how you got started in your career and where you are today. 

Chris:

Great way to start off. Granted I feel like I’m 39 years young but I’ve lived a lot of different lives growing up and going through my journey. A lot of pivotal moments and a lot of transitions. But I’m from Charleston, South Carolina originally. Raised by two beautiful parents that they gave me nothing but love and joy and created a great household, but we didn’t come from a lot of money.

My older sister, she was born handicap. She passed away, unfortunately, when she was 18. I was about to turn 16, I was 15 at a time in 1997 and I have a younger sister. I have three nieces. From my little sister. I love them like they’re my children. I have a child myself, but we come from a very strong niche family and Italian type of family.

Like even like when I was growing up in Charleston, we didn’t have a lot of money and obviously whatnot, but we had a lot of love and a lot of structure and a lot of family and a lot of core values. So I kind of come from really a good family with really strong morals and values.

So we all lived on one street. After high school, I played sports. I was always good in sports. I was always the active kid. My mom, I was talking to her this past week and she was talking about it. My youngest niece Kennedy, she has a lot of me in her, I guess, in a way.

My mom watches the nieces. Obviously, especially with COVID stuff. She watches them and she’s cries when she has to come inside. I was always outside kid, but then I just love that type of stuff. Very active, went to the military, went to the Navy, was very blessed individual in serving my country for five years. Two tours of Iraqi Freedom. Did patrolling in the Red Sea and Bahrain for two deployments, other deployment, and before 9/11 was counter narcotics.

The reason why I’m telling you that part cause that I took a lot from my experiences in the Navy. Especially with the training. How to structure things, leadership, leading from the front and also leading from the back and making sure no one falls behind. Then I made that transition obviously with college money.

Then started off in like sales and chemicals. And then 2007ish happened and chemicals obviously went down. I made a transition to education sales and I’d really started to scratch the surface on me discovering my purpose in life. And that was, reaching prospective clients, prospective students and enrolling them into trade school programs.

I did that very well. I was one of the top rated reps in the nation. And I was speaking on stage, going to Vegas and meeting some of the, I guess people that they call themselves internet marketers now. They all come from the education space and Legion. That’s where I made that transition sort of consulting for companies, went up to entrepreneurship about eight years ago now, and did extremely well went back from there.

Came from education, made a good amount of capital. Then I went back to the trade school industry, sort of building out some programs. It was the world’s first and only sales and business trade schools that got nationally accredited. So now 60 corporations are not own, but they operate that brand.

It’s obviously rebranding. It’s not my voice or my face anymore, but it’s my words. Built out that out, sold that to a program. They extreme amount of good money. I was so blessed to have that opportunity, but I just went through my journey. Then now what I’m doing now, obviously the podcasting network. I have the first couple of seasons of the win-win effects.

I had it in the contracts with the trade schools of me kind of teaching them the win-win effect, that methodology that I’ve developed over the years and honing in on my craft. Everyone needs to win. I can’t enroll someone into a program if they’re not going to do well, pass a review, and it’s not going to benefit their life.

There’s no buyer remorse. I don’t want to get in that kind of conversation right off the bat. But I have a really strong views and strong feelings with people calling themselves sales gurus. They don’t know anything about sales. They might know how to persuade people. I don’t sell people, I serve people and I help people.

That’s how selling is done. Supposed to be done morally and ethically. So going from there and then the podcast, I had set up in some deals where they would have to listen to the show to trade school. So that taught them how to sell their program, to sell the program that I sold them. That helped out with the downloads.

The first year to podcasts and went from maybe my mama will listen, maybe my cat will listen. But now, went over about 2 million downloads in the first year, which was extreme amount of success and came out of nowhere. I’m just so grateful. I was talking to people that obviously we interviewed, introduced us. Adam he’s got his own podcast and stuff, and you’ve got Justin Schenck. You got some major name Boger, you got all these great people that I’ve met through this podcasting journey.

Now we’re developing our own podcasting network. I know it’s a more of a long winded type of answer, but kind of giving your students and giving your listeners a little bit more in depth on where I come from in a world and not just what I do for a living, but why I do it. 

Kathryn:

That’s a great answer and I appreciate that very broad overview.

There are so many things that I want to dig into there. I’m afraid that I’m going to forget one of them. But I love, love, love the win-win effect and the podcast for sure. Tell our listeners exactly what is behind the win-win effect? 

Chris:

The win-win effect is a human based code for human collaboration, especially in business. It’s all about human interaction.

If, say for instance, if I was on a call with somebody that maybe doesn’t know what they need to do in life. They are looking to the person that’s calling them or working with them as a person of influence or a person  that maybe has credibility in the game and obviously pointing them in the right direction, giving a recommendation. 

The win-win effect, it needs to be a win for them. It needs to be a win for the company, needs to be a win for the person they’re working with and a win in all. The only way to really do that is you have to make a complete shift in living an abundant lifestyle. Not just an abundant mindset, abundant lifestyle. So to me, the win-win effect is that’s the effect that I have on others.

And I don’t just try to enroll someone or enroll a company. I’m just doing it in a different capacity now, obviously working with major corporations. I’m talking about like Fortune 500 companies. But that’s what they love about it because that’s where you have to have an extreme amount of emotional intelligence.

Have to have that. I discovered this even recently over the past year and some of my spiritual journey and some of the things I had to overcome with my anxiety and depression and whatnot. Not really much depression, just more of having like my body had a panic attack without even me knowing because I was suppressing certain emotions and trying to just do what I needed to do, but that’s the whole part is about realign it and rechanneling things every single day.

That’s the process. You heard some of the major players, I mean, even the Elon Musks of a world talk about a routine in the morning. I put myself through a very structured routine every single day to be able to do what I do on a level that I’m doing it, I don’t just wake up and I’m doing it, I have to make that happen.

That’s what win win is, is me putting in the work on myself and also being able to be in a situation where I’m able to serve on that type of capacity for everyone else to win as well. If I wasn’t putting in the work myself, they’re not going to feel that from me. 

Kathryn:

Yes. So when you used to get on sales calls to sell something to someone, what I’m hearing is you wouldn’t get on that call knowing exactly what you were going to sell and that you had to sell it to this person.

It was just as much of what does this person needs. 

Chris:

And sometimes, they want something. Wants and needs are completely different. They’ll go, well, I want to buy this. I’ve even had students and people say that to me. I want to enroll into this program.

Well, you’re not qualified to work on that program. I don’t know if you’re going to, it’s going to work out for you. My job is for me to break down your needs, wants, and desires. And what are you really wanting from this particular program, product, or service or good. And is it going to help you in the next one, three to five, 10 years?

Is it going to serve you? If it’s not going to serve you then, you’re not in the right fit. I’ve mentioned this to a couple people that I’m not going to name drop on. Some of the salespeople, they love that way of thinking. And they love that approach because I take it away from them at the beginning. 

You can’t buy what I’m selling. I don’t even know what I’m going to sell you, I don’t know if you’re going to be a good fit, I let them know right at the beginning, that first call. 

Listen, Kathryn, what I’m here to do is kind of observe by asking you some questions and to discover an area of opportunity for you.If I feel at any part of this conversation that I don’t feel that you might be a good fit, at least what I’ll do is I’ll point you in the right direction. 

From what I just mentioned and what I just told you, what did you hear me say? Why. As you’re looking for an engagement and that’s the piece right there develops a lot of trust.

That’s the foundation. 

Kathryn:

Yeah. You are telling them that you want to get to the bottom of exactly what they can use to benefit them now and in the future. Not just selling them something. That’s that is the win-win effect. 

So I do quite a bit of self value work with my clients because I know that is the foundation upon which we build our lives. If we don’t have self value, we are severely limiting or potential. It took me 49 years to realize I was special. Not more special than anyone else, not less special than anyone else, but just that I’m special because I bring something to the table so that no one else can bring in any given situation. And that’s my me-ness.

Chris:

Yes, a hundred percent. I love that you’re saying it that way because every single person on this planet is unique and special and different in their own little way. The ones who discover their purpose and their align and polarizing out that frequency and the true essence of them, those are the ones that realize that they’ve very unique and they’re bringing something extra to the table that no one else can duplicate those results. I love that you said that. 

Kathryn:

Well, thank you. It took me a long time to cherish my me-ness because you have to take what you used to see as your flaws. Right. Put them in the entire picture of, well, that makes me me and not the next person. 

Chris:

Sure. Competitive advantage. A hundred percent. 

Kathryn:

I help my client do the same. I’m wondering what it is that sets you apart that is your uniqueness that you bring to the table that nobody else does? 

Chris:

I love that you asked that question. Thank you for that question. Defining your competitive advantage it can be very strenuous. And a process, but if you’re able to go back into some of your, I guess dark times in your life, sometimes the best things that happen in which you’re able to manifest come from the darkest moments of your life and memories.

For myself, it came from my older sister that wasn’t able to speak and walk and talk. It’s a lot of things that we take for granted and especially nowadays. I was in a position even with a very young child and being in the same crib as my older sister to see sister Sue Ellen. I would communicate to her through nonverbal communication.

That’s a connection and that’s where I really define my competitive advantage. And that’s where I developed so much emotional intelligence. I was able to read exactly what she needed from me. I told a story about this in a previous conversation, I think with Shannon Connery, do you know her?

She’s a PhD, Denver, Colorado. She’s a phenomenal individual. Great story. I’ll have to introduce you. You’ll have to remind me. Beautiful lady, like her soul is just so beautiful. Like yourself, with what you do for a living. She was asking me questions and that’s where I really developed a lot of emotional intelligence and not paying attention to what people are telling me verbally.

I’m able to understand what their intentions are and what they should be saying to me and why they’re not saying certain things and I’ll sort of identify patterns of behavior. It turns into personality traits if we’re not careful. And it’s self-sabotage. 

I meet a lot of people. And over the years that have come to me 10 years after working with me and go, I just wanted to tell you, you changed my life. And I appreciate you. That means more to me than any kind of anything, any type of dollar amount. That means so much to me. Because that’s my competitive advantage. And I’m aligned with my purpose in life. This is what brings me fulfillment. Now I don’t do what I do for a living to make money.

That’s just a by-product. And I know that a lot of people say that, but I’ve really believed that I feel that that’s my life. And those are the ones who are able to be able to tap into that competitive advantage. You talk about that me-ness. That’s why we’re able to do what we do. And do it on less time.

It’s like cutting through people’s, I guess the barriers, they put up or protection, right? Fight or flight, they put up for protection. I’m able to cut through those, like a hot knife in butter. I cut right through it and I go right to the core and the root and the nucleus of the problem.

Kathryn:

And you can see what they need even before they know it? You were looking out for your sister’s needs, that she couldn’t communicate in the same way a lot of us do. You were able to not just listen to words, but really look into that person and see what are their deepest needs?

What do they want most in the world? Because what they want most is definitely propelled by what they need. 

Chris:

And this is where I fell into, I guess you would say a really difficult time. About all this success over the years and I’m very fortunate. My first year in entrepreneurship didn’t really work out that well, but that’s, I guess every entrepreneurial experience at some point. Didn’t like go bankrupt or lose, but I didn’t have a lot.

I made a really good amount of money. Just, it had a lot of holes in my business financially. I was paying a bunch of money. It was stupid. Like not outsourcing, structuring contracts the way I did. But when I’ve really failed in life and had an amazing amount of success. I mean, selling companies for $12 million, getting to eight figure type of numbers. I don’t even like to talk about it sometimes on all my success, but people see that as success, but that’s not success for me. Success for me was when my daughter was born and then my ex relationship was dissolving, obviously not really working out. And we were struggling in our relationship.

She was seeing how hard I was working and all the effort I was putting in the businesses. And I wasn’t putting forth the same effort into myself and also with her, because I could do all the emotional intelligence stuff, tactically with students and with businesses. But I wasn’t a hundred percent aligned with me.

Kathryn:

So, what did that dark part of your life look like? Paint us the picture of what that looked like for you. 

Chris:

I love what you just said. Just paint a picture and what it looked like for me is the picture, outside looking in. I had it all. Beautiful relationship, physically and obviously of everything we had. It wasn’t like always a bad relationship.

It just dissolved. We weren’t connected anymore. I had a young daughter, had all the money I could probably ever have, had seven properties had seven different businesses, different entities. Featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur magazine all these others, Fast company being interviewed by some of the major players. 

Outside looking I had it all. But one thing I didn’t have was my own sanity and clear and concise vision on what I really wanted and having it. A balance in all areas of my life. And when I talk about balance, I’m not talking about work-life balance. I don’t know the difference now, Kathryn, of work and play anymore.

This is just my life, but that was a long process for me. About a year, but that made me more powerful even when it comes to business. I don’t need to tell people that anymore. I was mentioning this to a good friend of mine. We’re actually business partners. Did Miami inc., he’s a pretty big name out there, Mike Diamond.

He’s an addiction specialist. He’s like 15 years sober has worked with some big names out there and teaching. Obviously helping them and serving them and not being an addict or not doing drugs anymore. And these are some major players in the game that he’s helped.

He’s done some amazing things, but I was talking to him about it the other day. We’re having a call about some of the things we’re expanding on in the UK. He mentioned for people that don’t do the work in the dark times when no one’s watching, they get exposed in the bright lights. And I loved the way that he said that. Now, I won’t be exposed in a bright light.

That’s why, when you turn that little red light on, we’re live, I’m a hundred percent we’re going. But I could do it in my business life, but I couldn’t do that much in my personal life. I would get off of work and I put all the effort into my jobs, into my businesses, and flying around and structuring deals and building out programs and making such a huge impact.

I was giving everybody else in my life that I particularly, I was doing it for, I was giving them what was left to me, not the best of me.

Kathryn:

I agree with what you’re saying about the work-life balance because if you love what you do, it’s not even work.

It just meshes into everything. But what I’m hearing is like we have eight domains the way I see it, eight different areas of our lives that all vary in importance from one person to the next. But I’m hearing that you weren’t really paying attention and digging into what you valued in your other domains.

What was most important to you in your other domains outside of work and relationships to become satisfied with your life overall and who you were. 

Chris:

It was an ego problem. Lot of high achievers suffer from this. You can’t destroy your ego. You don’t need to learn how to manage your ego, like your fight or flight mechanism.

You had that one brain, okay. This is what people don’t understand about the human mind. They don’t understand how it works and how it operates. Then you have the other part of your brain is more of like a library and a person that has stored all that subconscious information there for you to need it at some point.

So if it’s a life or death situation, you’re gonna pull out information you haven’t thought about in years and you’ll put it into that conversation or in an event, then you had the other part. Let’s talk about that neocortex and slowing down time. But when you’re looking into this, where I really suffered from is that ego is a dumb brain. 

You need to keep him busy or keeping her busy, if you’re a woman. Keep them busy on something and keeping them distracted and not suppressing, but keeping them busy and focusing on something else and focusing on a solution rather than a problem and understanding what that problem or threat could be and could do to you where it’s not really a threat in the first place, because everything’s an illusion.

It’s not real. Like nothing’s real. My past is not real. Suffering is not real. It’s an illusion. But then once you gain that knowledge and I thought, I mean, I’ve read over 1500 books in the last five to seven years. I mean, I try to read two every two weeks and that’s difficult sometimes. I want to take it in and apply to information, but not just try to get information.

I want to use explicit knowledge, not just information, right. But once you gain all this information, you realize that it’s all an illusion. Because people spend so much of their time in the past and in the future, not in present because present is a gift. That’s why it’s called a present.

Right now is a gift. I don’t take for granted the conversation we’re having right now. There’s nothing else going on for me. Nothing. I’m having a conversation with you and I’m not focusing on the things I got to do later after this call or after this recording. I’m talking about only things with you.

And being dialed in. I wasn’t doing that in my personal life. A phone would be next to me. I’ll be at dinner. I would be thinking about business. It isn’t like I was trying to be malicious or hurting people. I was trying to protect them because I was trying to build something out and doing something massive that they couldn’t understand, but that’s okay.

But I understood that piece. That’s where I wasn’t present enough to understand all the issues. If I was present 100% present and dialed in, I would have picked up on it using my emotional intelligence, but it blindsided me. 

Kathryn:

Yeah. So I’m hearing, you’ve made a really great shift when it comes to mindfulness and intentionality in the moment. Instead of always thinking about next steps or what’s going to what needs to happen next in your business or anywhere else.

And you mentioned earlier, a panic attack and anxiety. Oftentimes anxiety comes out in our brains, limiting us and telling us you can’t do it. And it really keeps us stuck from leaving our comfort zone and achieving all the type of success that you achieved in business. So I’m really interested in finding out how the anxiety looked for you and how it affected your life.

Chris:

That’s a really, really, really good question. I’ve always been the type of person where I wouldn’t say really suppressing my emotions. I knew what I knew what I wanted to get done, but I couldn’t control the ego part of me. And I would say things that I potentially wouldn’t mean. This is where people can really suffer from narcissistic type of capabilities. Like the way that they would do things gaslit people and whatnot, but you have to be aligned. I was even picking up one because I believe all of us at some point of our lives have narcissistic tendencies. The ones that become a little bit more aware and realign, you can break that.

You can change anything. So I’m listening to some of these people that think they specialize in it, but they don’t have a PhD. They don’t have anything other than a certificate of them thinking that everybody’s a narcissist. No, not everyone’s a narcissist it’s about the time and figuring these things out.

But when you’re going into detail. For me, my anxiety, I was trying to focus on it and deal with it and living in that moment and embracing it’s like, so where I learned how to kind of figure this out, it’s a cultivation of silence and a cultivation of self discovery and investigation for myself and being alone in my own thoughts completely.

I can do it. I can just do it before. I wouldn’t have gotten to the levels of success that I have achieved before that year, this past year, but I wasn’t all the way, a hundred percent inside of it. And really Holy, like everything inside of me and aligned. And that’s where you can raise your vibration, a polarized, you sit on a different frequency.

It’s just amazing. And you attract the people that you should have in life because that’s what karma is all about. You have someone doing something to you. And if you do something back to them, you’re now still attracting that same cycle into your life. You’re recreating your own trauma and your own suffering without even realizing it and getting stuck in that behavioral pattern.

But when I paid attention to this, I started putting in that work and I started paying attention to it. I started listening to myself and my intuition a lot more. And I was like, damn, these are my faults. I can a hundred percent own some of mine, but that’s why they were doing what they were doing in this point.

Now I don’t feel a certain way, or I’m not angry at that person because if they were doing it to me, that I would be angry too. I wouldn’t have the same reaction, but they didn’t have the information that I have had over the years. That’s where I failed is that it should have been I should have been leading with what I’m afraid of.

Not. Blah, blah, blah, whatever. It takes two people to be in a relationship. It takes two people to argue. It takes two people to whatever, right. Yes, but it also takes two people to argue, it takes two people to do whatever. So both of them are doing it in a way of hurting each other and resentment and whatnot and shame and guilt and whatever.

You’re creating the same cycle. And nothing will ever get done because one person’s on, based on emotions and based on empathy, the other one’s based on resentment and just like man to hell with it, I’m done with it and pushing things off and throw it sweeping underneath a rug. That’s where I learned this from my family. My dad’s the kind of person where he would get caught up in his own ego and say things that he would never do and try to sweep it underneath the rug like that shit was never said.

Well, I suffered from that and I realized that my panic attack came from me really investigating that and then going through what I was going through in my personal life. Of course, I was still doing what I’m doing and having amazing amount of success, but I wasn’t all the way completely breaking through that barrier.

I noticed I’m getting long-winded on this, but when I was in the Navy, it talked about I had these fighter jets to breaking through sound barriers. The pilots are telling me when they’re about to break through that sound barrier, that’s where the cockpit, and it feels like that plane is going to blow up.

That’s where you getting all the pressure coming from the outside. Right. But you’ll break through a barrier and I believe that’s the only way I can describe my panic attack. I thought I was dying. I’ve never had a panic attack in my life. I woke up and I call of course you call your mom, when you’re sick or whatever. I thought I was having a heart attack.

I couldn’t breathe. But then she soothed me, calm me down, went to the doctor and he was like, you had a panic attack. How much stress do you? I told him what was going on in my life and what I’ve done. They were like, You’re in good health. I mean, I was like, listen to this past year, I’ve lost a lot my weight.

I’m down like 35 pounds, almost boxing weight. Again, I’m feeling good. But he was like, but everything comes from here. Right. But that was my moment breaking through that barrier. But once I broke through that barrier, now I wasn’t trying to be like a tough guy anymore. I started by really taking care of myself.

Kathryn:

That that’s amazing. All of our feelings and actions are based on our thoughts. Do you remember, or are you aware of now what your thoughts were about yourself that were leading you to this anxiety and this panic?

Chris:

I wasn’t in a moment of surrendering control.

That’s where the anxiety came from. I suffered from this my whole life. I need to be in control and that’s where a lot of high achievers suffer from this and perfection or whatever, that might be perfectionist. It was hard for me cause if I can’t control the situation, I’m not controlling it to just for me to get a win from it, I mean, that’s obviously not what I’m about anyway.

But what I’m talking about, If I can’t control the situation, so I had to really surrender those feelings and those thoughts and trying to direct. Like you mentioned those thoughts, you can’t control these thoughts.

But you can direct them to a positive outlet. My problem is when I would have a thought, I wasn’t directing it to a positive outlet of surrendering. I was trying to direct and trying to figure it out in the future on how I’m able to make sure that this will happen this is the outcome that we get to.

Does that make sense? So that’s why I smiled even all the work I was doing. That was the universe’s way, or God’s way in my opinion of making sure that I was ready for that next level. 

Kathryn:

Yeah. As a recovering perfectionist, and that is what anxious and perfectionistic people do, we want to control the outcome, so that we know we get what we want and we can handle it. What we’re telling ourselves is we can’t handle it if we don’t get the outcome that we want. The problem is we put so much pressure on ourselves because we think we have more power than we do. 

Chris:

We don’t have that power. 

Kathryn:

We are one variable in many variables.

Chris:

Oh wow, this is powerful I love that.

Kathryn:

And the result on the other side is the result of all these variables. And we’re one, but we think if we try hard enough and we think enough about the future, we can control all the other variables in the equation that on the other side get us the results. 

Chris:

Wow.

Kathryn:

Letting go of realizing we can’t do that is the most liberating thing in the world.

Chris:

Now you’re experiencing bliss. 

Kathryn:

Yes. Exactly.

Chris:

And joy. A hundred percent. When my daughter was born, it was the first time in my life I was crying again ever to experience joy. I didn’t know how to deal with those feelings. That was a starting point, that was a spark for me to go back in. I suppressed that and not running away completely, but I was suppressing that feeling of being a hundred percent vulnerable because of the death of my sister.. And that was like, Holy shit. It all made sense then, because that was the most petrified, joyful moment in I don’t know. 

It was just a weird feeling. And I was like, I know this feeling. It was the first time that I felt a feeling. The universe forced me to feel that feeling. And I was like, wow, this feels great, but this is scary, but that’s a surrender piece. Right, right. I’m so grateful and God does things, and I believe, to service a hundred percent.

You mentioned that competitive advantage and mine, like some spiritual people say this when you pass away and you pass over, God’s going to introduce you to the version on what he created and what you should have become. Well, I go a little further than that.

I can’t look my sister in a face and her look at me and go, this is what you did with your life. That drives me. 

Kathryn:

Yes in the minute that you realized that you could handle the pain, negative emotions that came from losing your sister was the minute you allowed yourself a broader spectrum of emotions.

Chris:

I started dumping all the other things that weren’t serving me at that time. I was able to add so many more things in. What I mean by adding things in, I was just shedding layers of myself. People think they need everything externally. Like, no, this is my home.

This is my heart, this is my choice, this is everything right. All the pressure comes from the outside and you can’t let it penetrate internal, there’s nothing there. Nobody’s going to ever own any mind, body or spirit of me ever. If I’m continuing to keep putting in the work.

But as everyday process, any day ends in Y there’s not a someday, right? It’s every day for me, not on Thursday. Every day. It’s an everyday process because it’s not people say, Oh, you’re healed. I’m not healed. This is a healing process. I’m never going to be a hundred percent healed because I can’t control the outside environment.

I can’t control these things. 

Kathryn:

I have so many more questions and one of them is, based on all of your experience and then all of your personal work, how has your definition of success changed?

Chris:

A hundred percent change. Like in the morning is part of my ritual that I go through and I put out in the universe, what I want.

I believe in the Law of Attraction to an extent, and I don’t want to get into that type of talk and what people believe. I don’t want to offend your listeners and what they do believe. I don’t sit at home and try to meditate and try to go to an extent and drinking certain teas and all that stuff. If it works for you, it just works for me.

What works for me is going through all that and going through a list of everything I’m grateful for at nighttime. In the first part of the morning, me saying all the things that I’m grateful for, and then I’m gonna start asking the asking for what I want, I would do this years ago. And that’s how I was able to manifest the life of I have right now and the things I’ve created. You don’t discover yourself, you create yourself from what you’re given. And that’s only things that the gifts that I have, I’m playing the cards I was dealt with because it might work for whatever works for you, whatever works for your listeners.

Everyone’s going to be different, but I know what works for me. I have my secret ingredients. I’m the secret me. I know how to work me. There’s no instruction manual to us. Right. We weren’t given one. I know how to operate myself now. Luckily I figured it out maybe before a lot of other people have figured this shit out.

But when I go in the morning, as I start putting things out that I’m looking for in life, it used to be, I’m gonna build this business. I’m gonna have this. Now it’s about, I just want peace. All I ask for is peace, peace in every situation. I just look for the peace. And me having peace with their actions or inactions or things I can not control.

That’s what keeps me aligned. That’s my secret ingredient to my success, because if I’m focusing on just being peaceful and being at peace, I can do anything else because I have the skills. 

Kathryn:

Totally agree. I have. The same four questions I ask myself every morning and the same routine I go through during the week, because I know I’m a recovering perfectionist. I know what about me gets in my own way. And I have to remind myself so that I don’t let it get in my way. 

Chris:

And I love that you get those. If you can just like share it with the listener the four questions. What are those four questions? I think I remember three out of the four, but I just want to go off the top of my head from our last conversation.

Kathryn:

Who do I want to be today? How do I want to show up for those that I love? What do I want to accomplish today? And what actions will that take?

Chris:

That’s why I wanted you to, cause you’ve mentioned, that’s where you sparked a thing. And I’m not going to ask the questions, this is your show, right. But I guess suffering from that, sometimes being a guest, but you talk about show up.

That’s what I wasn’t doing. I wasn’t showing up and showing people who I was 100%. They were seeing a version of what I wanted them to see. Not who I am and the frequency and understanding. That’s what I believe true love is recognizing the other person’s energy and seeing them, and just recognizing the beauty to inner essence and beauty of the energy of that person’s soul.

That’s freedom. That’s what they need to be, feel free. It’s not controlled. Right? So you can’t control this stuff. The surrendering piece that people don’t understand, they get into a relationship. They try to control the other person. 

Kathryn:

And when you’re off in your head, right, you are not present to turn toward that person when they give you the little clue that they need you to. Right.

Chris:

 And it’s stopping them and just tell them how much you appreciate them for what they do for you and what they do not do. Recognizing the true essence of them. That’s what I really suffered with. I wasn’t 100% aligned and feeling vulnerable enough in that conversation. Granted the other person and other parties, maybe weren’t creating an environment for me to feel safe at that time for me to really be able to communicate that. So that’s something I had to learn too, is me not taking accountability for things that isn’t my fault.

See my point that because when we tried to take a hundred percent accountability, we think we need to take accountability for all their actions or inactions as well. No, no, no. Only the shit you can control.

Kathryn:

On what we’ve done and yes to the cycle. That is the relationship.

Chris:

And the next part is when you say, for instance, this is where I see a lot of people and they may be trying to get back together or I don’t know, they resent the other person for the next 20 years. Like where I’m at right now cause I’m at a hundred percent aligned. My role is to make sure that I’m going to raise a beautiful daughter and a creative mind where all the things that maybe have dissolved in my previous relationship,  don’t affect her at all.

And I’m skilled enough to be able to do that, but a happy her is a happy ex. So I need to give her everything that she needs to be able to obviously, but it’ll be a different way. And I’m not insinuating that then we wouldn’t get back together one day or she meets the person of dreams.

It doesn’t matter to me. These are all things I can’t control. 

Kathryn:

Yes, absolutely, solely on what you value and how your actions and your words can contribute to that.

Chris:

That was spark was for my daughter. That was a spark and I needed something to do for her. Then it shift from doing it for her. Like I’m not working this and I’m doing start this journey and start this realignment process for myself. For me. I did it for her first. And then I discovered myself in that. 

Kathryn:

Oh, that’s beautiful. I could definitely go so many different directions in this conversation, but before we run out of time, I want to make sure we get to talk about your newest venture.

Chris:

I love this and that’s why I love our last conversation. Cause I cheers these kinds of conversations because I want the listeners to really understand. I’ve interviewed $500 million players and games and me getting board meetings with these people, they’re looking at me, you know what I mean?

Like they’re inferior to me, not like they’re superior to me. No, it’s backwards. How I’m able to do that with a confidence level. And they’re wanting to do work with me. Well, I got to do something with you, it’d be a travesty of us if we don’t do something together. I’m going to name drop, these are some major players and it, but my thing is this.

I put in so much work. I expect to meet them. That’s how I’m able to do it with so much confidence. I expect to meet them. 

Kathryn:

And that’s part of what’s so exciting about me getting to have this conversation with you because I’m the exact opposite of a player. 

Chris:

No, you’re not. And just to kind of just maybe just expand on that. People don’t realize how close they are of being able to achieve everything they’ve ever wanted in a business. They’re that close. It takes that much. It I’m telling you if you focus on how can you serve and how can you make an impact and the type of impact and focusing on that. When you’re free and you’re raising your frequency and your vibration, you’ll attract that life.

It’ll come to you in the moments you never thought. I was refreshing my computer one day, when a deal went through and I got $12 million richer. Just hit. Nuts. Right. My feelings and not, it had nothing to do with a dollar amount. To me. It had nothing to do with any of that stuff. Now I’m like what it meant for me.

I look at that as a little bit more resentment that costs me my ex relationship because that’s what I was building. 

Kathryn:

So tell me about this newest venture. It may not be your newest venture, but tell me about your broadcasting and media network and what you’re doing with that. 

Chris:

Thank you for bringing that up.

And this just came to me. I was able to present the trade schools with a proposition in the two programs that I built, which they did a rebranding for to sales and the business programs got those done and got it underneath their umbrella. Then I kinda got to a point where I was like, what do I do now?

Like I saying before they’re like, Oh, you’re a sales guy. And I’m like, nah, that’s just where I come from. That was my intro to entrepreneurship. I’ve done a lot of great things. I’m just blessed, but the newest venture, and I really didn’t know what I’m going to do.

I was doing podcasting. I kind of had that in mind, I was like, well, how can I make more of an impact now with podcasting? Then I started interviewing guests that I realize how hard it is to get good guests to come on the show. I just do everything by referrals now. So people that we know together collectively, the ones that love the art of podcasting, because that’s what I think podcasting is to me as it is now.

I’m able to show how I’m able to do what I’ve done in my career by interviewing guests. Like I haven’t had a guest that come on the show that hasn’t said to me at some part of that duration, that conversation, no one’s ever asked me that question. That’s an art, it’s a skill. And I’ve honed in on that craft.

That’s my whole idea for the podcast. So that’s where to podcast now, to develop the network. When you do things right way, you have to make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. I wasn’t doing it to make money. So I’m trying to build not just a network, a community of podcasters and shows and teaching them how to monetize and make money from this and not charge them anything.

I’m able to take that, go to sponsors, go to this. I’m trying to take someone that maybe has 10 people to listen to their show and them getting exposed to hundreds of millions of people through my network that I’ve been so grateful to be able to meet and those types of networks and getting them more exposure.

That’s what success is to me. It’s those who get exposed to that way of thinking. Some of us get exposed at the beginning and have a silver spoon in your mouth. But some of us get exposed later on in life. When you’re exposed to success, you can take off. 

Kathryn:

So another win-win. 

Chris:

Yep. That’s my point. So that’s where that’s the name of it called wind jet.

It’s like I’m injecting everybody with a winning mentality, so I’m injecting them with the win-win. So that was the whole, I wish I could tell that. I’m a visionary and I can think that way, but I put that much effort into connecting all the dots and the things that people don’t normally see in business.

And that came from exposure, me being around the right people. 

Kathryn:

Well, I just think that’s a perfect exclamation point to our conversation. Although I could continue to talk to now. 

Chris:

Feel free to do whatever you’re the only thing that I have going on at this moment. So we’re good. 

Kathryn:

Right back at ya, where can, where can everyone find out more about you online?

Chris:

ChrisRossofficial.com is my, I guess, home. That’s where you can find the hub and finding everything else. But if you want to find anything about shows and all kinds of exclusive content and all the things that we have going on, winject.com

They have a thing on there where it says, just go and follow this. Watching content people’s content and showing them how to monetize. But that’s pretty much, I just want people to listen to the show, the win-win effect. I just drive everybody there. And from there, they get to know me.

They get to know some of the guests got guests like yourself coming on. I have found about podcasting. It’s not the major names that bring the most to the show. Cause everyone’s heard their stories. It’s the ones that have such a compelling story and have really something to say.

And that’s something that I talk about with the wind ject. Everyone can put a microphone in her face and think they can say something. And they have something to say, but some people have something to say, but they’re not plugged into the right thing for people to hear it. That’s what I do for people.

I plugged them into the right rights channels, right stations for people that need to hear their message, they’re able to hear on that frequency. So that’s what we do. 

Kathryn:

Oh, I love that. I love that. And I finished up the podcast in the same way each week by asking my guests, what is one imperfect action that you suggest we all take today to get a little bit closer to our best lives?

Chris:

Hm. That’s a really like jam packed question.

Kathryn:

Loaded. Isn’t it?

Chris:

Yeah. That’s a really good, I don’t get this kind of way often and I’m not trying to buy time. And that was a really good question. Take some time today and really break down how much time you actually spent alone in your own thoughts.

And then ask yourself the next question. Are you giving yourself enough time for yourself? Some people do it in the morning for myself, right when I wake up. Whatever that part of that day and whatever it looks like. There’s so many people that are just controlled by the universe, control by all these other things.

They touch their phone, they get lost in all that bullshit. I don’t believe in, I think social media is ruined in ruining this world, but it’s helping the world connect, but they’re not connecting in a right way. They’re doing it in a malicious way. Everyone’s searching for acceptance and everyone’s just, they’re unhealthy.

Mental health is a big thing. People are killing themselves. This pandemic is not just someone dying from a virus. Bless your hearts if you have somebody you know, it’s a real thing. But mental health, you’ve got people drinking, doing drugs, doing all kinds of things. Having arguments with their relationships, dissolved marriages and you have all this stuff.

This is real. That’s a real pandemic. Take some time for yourself to really dig in. 

Kathryn:

I second your motion. I have so many clients that come to me and they really have been taught, especially women that if they focus on themselves at all, that that means they’re selfish. 

Chris:

Yeah, you need to be selfish.

So how many hours? Every Oprah Winfrey. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, right? All these major players that all they’d done, everything they wanted out of life. They had the same 24 hours.

Kathryn:

That’s exactly right. 

Chris:

How much time do you put in for yourself though? Like, do you love yourself?

During this past year, I was selfish enough to fall in love with my funi and fall in love with myself again. I gave myself permission to fall in love with myself.

Kathryn:

That right there is the key that, right. There’s the key. Do some time thinking about yourself and what you need, and also what you have been looking at as flaws.

How those contribute to the complete package that is you, so that you get clear on your youness, that you bring to the table in life that nobody else can bring. 

Chris:

Then taking that and making an impact. And win-win from everything. Cause when you’re being selfish and fall in love on yourself, this is where people’s that you mentioned that comment about, especially it does happen, especially with women.

They’re thinking they’re selfish. I need this time. I need my me time. Sometimes in relationship people screaming that and they’re not giving them that time and suffocating them and all that stuff. And then they’re being controlled and that’s why they end up going and having a  affair and they just wanted to feel free.

Right? I felt so alive. That’s one of the things that everyone says they felt alive because there was suffocating and aren’t getting the needs and wants and desires. But if you’re asking yourself and yourself alone and being selfish just for that moment. I love these numbers. When you look at 1% better every day, 1% of every day.

And the time is around 12 minutes. You mean to tell me you don’t have 12 minutes to be alone in your own thoughts and kind of asking yourself, those four questions that you mentioned. I love your show and I would love to help you any way that I can in a future of expanding your listenership or whatever that might be.

I look forward to really helping that. I hope that listeners took some of the things from my my long-winded sometimes answers. I love conversating with great people like yourself. So I appreciate you having me on. Thank you so much. 

Kathryn:

Thank you. I’ve had the best time talking with you and I look forward to many other deep and meaningful conversations in the future.

Chris:

Well guys, happy new year. Do do what you do, whatever time it is for world right now, but just focus on what you can control and then surrender all the other stuff. 

Kathryn:

Totally. I second that motion and until we meet back here next week, go out and take some imperfect action toward the life that you want.