[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey.
Hey.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: All right. I'm excited to have Christopher Salem here on the show today. Thank you for, for taking time out of your day. I know everybody's time is, is, you know, of a, of a priority, but yeah, I'm looking forward to our conversation today. So you have such a unique background in that you one, you have your own company, Empowered Fathers in Action Inc. And we'll talk about that. But you're a business executive mentor, you run your own successful business, but you're also, and I love the phrase, you're a business acceleration strategist. And not only that, but I love the fact that you're talking about earlier about how you work to help people create sustainable business. And that's not something we really hear in today's world because it's, we're very much. I, I feel like it's dying a little bit, but we're still very much in the hustle and grind.
Especially every time I deal with somebody who's a founder, you know, they, they, if they're working 80 hours a week, that's a part time job in the founder space. So let's talk about that a little bit. What do you mean when you talk about sustainable success as a business owner?
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you, Travis, for asking. You know, sustained sustainable success. It doesn't mean that, hey, every, when you get to that level, everything is going to go right and you're going to have success each and every day. No part of success is also experiencing the setbacks, the challenges when things don't go right or something doesn't work out. See, we can't become more innovative and creative if we're not experiencing challenges or setbacks, only things that we can only create better things from challenges. So sustainable success is about less being attached to the expectation, to the outcome or the outcome itself. It's about embracing the process that the process of success is always going to have to have its ups and downs. It's how we think differently to look at the downside, not as a downside, but as something that is, that is good. Even though it may not look, look, look like that at the time. It's one of the things that is necessary so that we can now learn to not become complacent, bored, and that we're always again on our toes, making sure we're proactive to make improvements, continuous improvements in the areas that we can provide value and impact to the clients, customers, patients, whatever business that you're in, that you serve.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. I love the fact you say being sustainable doesn't mean you're not going to have setbacks.
But I like just the word sustainable. Right. I think especially again, the work that I do, I talk to a lot of people that are just burned out, right. Because they follow a specific business model. Not asking the question of is this business model right for me, is my personality type. But so you get caught up and they're like, oh, how do you be successful? Hustle, hustle, hustle, grind, grind, grind, work more. And if you're not working 80 hours a week, right, you're not doing the job correctly. And, and some people that works great for, you know, Schwarzenegger famously only slept five hours a day, right. And he just said that, he's like, I just naturally woke up after five hours. So for him that's easy. I, some people, you know, need the eight to nine hours sleep. And so if you're trying to live like Schwarzenegger, you're gonna, you're gonna burn out really quick. So what was it over the course of your career that helped you develop that, those strategies around sustainability, especially as it comes to, to business growth? Because I think the perception is that if you're going to have a business that's rapidly growing, scaling, there isn't going to be any balance or sustainability in it. It's all just going to be, you know, hope that you can hang on until you reach whatever that is, the exit or the, you know, the team or the certain size.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Yeah. So what it had to start with, I had to, I had to learn a couple of things. I had to learn how, how to focus on what I can control and what I can't control. See, if I get caught up in the things I can't control, then I'm always going to be operating in a reaction point of view. I'm going to be reacting to when things don't go right or things don't turn out the way I would like to, you know, see them. So I had to change my thinking to focus on what I can control. And what I can control is me. I can't control other people or situations, but I can control the things I can within myself. And that is the communication to myself and others and learning how to be more assertive rather than passive aggressive. So this way, whether if I'm the sender and, or the receiver of the communication, I'm responsible to make sure that I'm specific, clear and concise. So this way there's less room for assumption and speculation with other people, for expectations. To fall through the cracks. I can't just expect that someone else is going to do it just like I'm going to do it. I can't control what they're going to do or what their perception is of what I communicated to them. I also got to control my behavior to make sure that it's in alignment with my communication. If I say something and then my behavior contradicts what I said, well, guess what? That's not going to resonate with certain people. These are the very things that can work against me. It's my attitude I can control. It's happening for me, not to me. If it's happening to me, I'm the victim. I'm using excuses, I'm pointing the finger at other things to deflect what, you know, what going on onto other people in situations that doesn't work. I. I see it happening for me. I embrace the challenge. I welcome it. To learn and grow and seek sustainability in that in terms of whatever success that is in my business and personally at my personal side as well. Then it's my emotions and how I respond versus react. Negative emotions are not a bad thing. Matter of fact, they're a good thing. They are messages to let you know that something is unresolved. So instead of reacting from it, now I can choose to find out what can I do to make it better and now respond rather than react from a secondary emotion. So this way I'm not, you know, fall. I'm not, you know, furthering in, you know, and making the challenge or problem even worse. I'm finding ways to make it better. And then finally my action that I'm taking action, I'm laser focused on the priorities that matter, knowing when to delegate, especially things that are important and urgent, but that can be done by other resources and other people. And then letting go of the things that just don't matter, they're not priorities. They don't add up to what's really important. So I have to really use the priority matrix that Stephen Covey came up with many years ago. And that's what I've been using ever since. And that's how I live my life and day. I have daily goals that I go through every day and they roll up into weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual goals. Goals. So you got to have systems, activities, processes. But if you don't prioritize correctly, then you're always going to have distractions that are going to take you off course. And then finally you got to learn, you got to know how to work on Your business, no successful business person, especially that are doing a half a million to a million if they want to get to the 2 million and above mark, are never going to do it if they're trying to do everything or more than what they should be doing. They should be focusing on the strategy of the business, what they're good at, and now learning to delegate to other people and trusting other people, whether if they're employees, alliance partners, whatever resources to help them to do that. You can't scale to that level without making that transition.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: That makes sense. You know, I am, I want sort of somebody I was doing business with. He said, I thought the phrase was really interesting where he and his brother were in a business and it was doing 3 million a month and something changed and it basically just. The business stopped literally like 3 million a month to nothing overnight. Right?
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: He was talking about how, how emotional he was and like the sand of the world and whatever. And his brother said, look, being hysterical isn't helping deal with the situation, not the emotion.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: I've never thought about, I've never forgotten that where he was saying, he's like, I get your hysterical and I get that the scary. And I get this, you panicking because, you know, we went from 3 million to zero. But that we can't, you can't deal with the emotion that does nothing. But we can deal with the circumstance. So what you're saying, right. Deal with what you have control over. So we, you had mentioned earlier that growing up, coming from the, the household that you did, you. You ended up experiencing some limiting beliefs and some limiting, you know, habits.
And I would say most people experience that it's part of being human. But I also would say a lot of people never get beyond that. So I guess first off, how did you even recognize you had them? And then two, how did you replace those with the habits and the systems you have today that allow you to experience the success you have?
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Well, I just. Because I was always constantly operating in fear. I was constantly, always operating from stress and anxiety, feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. Now many people will say, well, that's, you know, kind of normal. Right. Most people.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Isn't that part of being an entrepreneur? That's like one of the jobs.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Exactly.
And, and there's nothing wrong with that. We all. You can't eliminate fear and you can't eliminate stress completely. But it, but it's the difference between moderate levels and then ex, then high or higher extreme levels. So when I was operating constantly from anxiety and constant, I just knew it was in my body, I had aches and pains, I had back problems, I had problems sleeping. And all of these are things that were just signals and signs to let me know that the way I was going about handling the day to day running a business was not going to serve me. A matter of fact, if I had kept going how I was going, I might have ended up passing away early like my father. Because my father was that type of person that, you know, stuffed things down like he did, even though, like he, he was carrying this anchor, but he didn't let you know he had this anchor. He, he stuffed it and then obviously it manifested itself into cancer. So those were the things that was my father's passing. That was the catalyst for me that knew that I had to change something within me because I kept on looking for the answers outside of myself, looking for the answers from somewhere else. So for me, I had to learn that if I was going to have a successful business, I had to improve myself. And it was not about being the best. It was about being my best. I had to learn to stop trying to be the best and showing up each day to be my best. There's a big difference, especially when we talk about sustainability in business and success.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: That is a, that phrase. It's not about being the best, it's about being your best. Correct. That's, that's really interesting. Yeah, that's.
So you started your business, you were going down the path that everyone was doing. And then you mentioned earlier that you, you know, when you had your first, your, your son, your priority shifted. Now I think that's a pretty common for most people, but again, you know, and I'm generalizing here, most people will just keep working really hard, right. And then kind of regret later. But you did the opposite. You pivoted and made your son the priority. So I'm, I'm curious again, what was the evolution that led. You did that and then how did you sort of mean.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Just to give you a little more context to the back, back of that story. I mean, I had, you know, prior to that happened, I had walked away from another business that I had done very well in and I made a lot of money and as a result of that, I had some cushion, if you want to put it that way. Meaning that I, I had money that I wasn't just going to live on, but there was money I was able to put away and then put a certain amount, you know, that I could, you know, use and leverage in. During that time when I had for my son, where My income now is in. My business was lower, but yet I was only going to be temporary. Right. I wasn't going to be doing it for the rest of my life or the rest of my career. It was going to be just for a certain amount of time that I was doing that. So I did have the benefit of having some cushion because I, you know, throughout my entire life, I was always a saver, meaning that I always lived below my means. I've always put money away and put it to use to, you know, to work for me, not me working for it. So I, I had, I had that to fall back on.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: That's nice. You know, it's. I just actually posted something this morning actually where I was talking about culture, American culture. And I said, if America had a culture, it was that it we all spend.
And I was taught when. So I worked in Hollywood for 15 years as a screenwriter and I had a producer friend who over the course of a decade made $50 million cash in his pocket after taxes and agencies. And about four years after that he retired and within seven years he was dead broke.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: And my, my brain was just kind of like, how do you. And I thought that was like, oh, that's just a Hollywood thing to do. Right? But when I got into the marketing arena and I started working with some huge marketers making 7, 8, 10 million a year, and I got behind the scenes, I realized that they, they were all, you know, they were making 8 million a year and on several ways like, my God, the guy's making 8, 10 million a year, but they were spending 8.5, right. Or 10.5.
And it's just such a, it's such an interesting phenomenon to me that so many people in America will. And, you know, a lot of these guys came from nothing, right? You came from rural Appalachia and you think, oh, they would. So anyway, I want some. I meet someone who's like, I, I live the old millenniums and save. That's so rare.
So anyway, kudos to you. That's awesome. I just said a little bit of a tangent there from my, my, because it's on top of my mind because I was writing about it today. But so when you work with someone, like, what's the process? You take someone. So I'm assuming that's. So let's use me as example. I got a million dollar business. I come to you and I'm like, hey, Christopher, I've been stuck at a million dollars for, for, for three years. And I, I really want to try to Double or triple my business. What's the process you're going to take me through to, to help me figure out how to get there?
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Okay, so first of all, we're going to have to work on you first before.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: No.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Well, the reason is, is because a lot of times you, it's, it's the business owner, believe it or not, that he or she will get in the own way of making that transition because they, they see it only from the way they see it. They can only see it how they, they envision it. What I teach business owners to understand is that you have to have more self awareness and self regulation to see things for what it is, not just what you, how you think it should be. Once you're able to now change that way of thinking, you're going to be able to see things that maybe normally you're not used to or maybe you wouldn't normally agree on, but now are open to new ideas. You're, you're more likely now to give up the control you can't control. You're more likely to delegate things that you were not used to doing because without now first, you know, learning how to do that, you're not going to be able to make those changes in the business. You're going to fight it, you're going to resist it and you're going to go right back to the same old ways that you were doing that are keeping you still at the 500,000 1 million mark instead of now growing. So we got to, we got to look at that number two, we got to look at your, your P and L. We got to look at. Okay, what are the, what, what are you trying to, let's look at what is your net profit margin? What is your revenue? Has the revenue shown any kind of progression at all? You know, we have to look at the pnl. Is the P and L increasing? Is it in alignment or better than the industry average depending upon the business that you're in? A lot of times you might be spending more money than you should in your cogs. You know, the cost of goods sold or you know, the expenses. So we look at that.
I'll look at also their, their, their process, their operations. A lot of times there's, they're not, they don't have the right systems or not all the right systems and tools and resource is in place in order to scale. And if you're not systemized, it's going to be very hard to move to that next level.
And again, I'm just kind of touching this On a macro level, of course. But then of course, everything is customized and I break it.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Right? Yep, yep, I get that now.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: One of the things I do, Travis, that a lot of business coaches and mentors and strategists don't do, they don't realize how important this is.
Many businesses, and this even goes for larger companies too, because I've seen this many, many times, they don't have either. One, they don't have a value proposition, or two, whatever they think is a value proposition is not truly in alignment with the audience they serve. Now, a lot of times I can go to a business owner and say, do you know your audience? Oh yeah, I know my audience. I, we know him real well. I've been in this business for 10 years. Matter of fact, before I started this business, I spent 15, 20 years working for somebody else. I know this business inside and out. Okay.
In my. How about your employees? Oh yeah, they know it too. And then I'll do an assessment where I'll go out and I'll do an audience segmentation analysis. I'll talk to each of the people that are involved in the process, indirectly, directly involved in increasing revenue in the business. And nine out of ten times never fails. They're not in alignment.
So they don't truly not understand the audience like they think their staff doesn't truly understand. So now you got certain people thinking this is the way to do it, this is the way to do it. The communication is not there. This is why things are falling through the cracks, because the communication is based on assumptions and speculation. Thus why it's important. What I talked about earlier, the self awareness and self regulation for each business owner to learn how to think differently, to look at things for what it is, not what they think it should be, so that we can eliminate. Well, offset that I shouldn't say eliminate completely.
A value proposition is very important. If you don't understand truly who your audience is, what is the challenge that they have that could be better? What are the results they seek and don't have. Many just assume that. And they don't have actual data. They haven't done any research or done any, any study to determine. And just because how things were done 10 years ago, 15 years ago is not going to be the same now. I had a, I had a moving company that came to me a few years ago. They had started their business in 1994 and they told me, here's our target audience. And I said. And they gave me the target audience. They said, yeah, we're targeting People in our, in mid-20s to like early 30s. These are usually people that are moving from maybe, you know, moving into their first apartment condo, maybe from into a starter home if they just got married. And they, they, they use our moving services. And even though we're not on a national level like U Haul or Penske, we, that's who our audience is. And I looked at this and I said, when's the last time you updated this? And they said, we haven't, we've been doing this since 1994. I said, yeah, I was your audience back then.
And I'm like, what are you talking about? I said I was your audience. I'm a Gen X. I was back then. I was 27 years old.
Yeah. I said, yeah, guess how old I am now.
How old? I said, I'm 57.
I said, you're targeting, you're still targeting a Gen X.
The Gen Xers are in their, are in their late 40s to late 50s.
That's not your audience. Your audience now are Gen Z and maybe, you know, the younger side of the millennium. Your message is not aligning to that audience.
Yeah, he, he was like shocked. And the thing, thing about this, Travis, most businesses and even some of the ones that have been around for a while look great. They're making money, but they're not making the money they could be because they don't understand this.
So and, and the thing is every business leads by features and benefits. Let me show you how I can make your make your life better. Let me show you how I can make your business better. That's not what's going to increase sales. It's the best companies are trusted advisors. They see, they help the client to see the challenge that can be better for them. Sometimes that has nothing to do with your product in itself. That's what the trusted advisor part comes in. You got to help them to see what that challenge is that can be better. What is the results they seek. And to have that value proposition is God. To now speak to that audience universally based upon a lot of factors. Personality type could be multi generational type per ethnic background. You got to factor all these things in to come up with the right messaging overall that is going to speak universally for that challenge that most of the people they serve want to be better into the results they seek. When you can do that. And now that can be leveraged across their website in the upper fold, marketing collateral across social media platforms in terms of their content or on the profile itself, when they're networking, when they're maybe they're on podcasts or maybe they're speaking at industry B2B conferences. Whatever. That message has got to be in alignment to that challenge that could be better to the results. You see that will reduce the number of touch points on the buyer's journey to accelerate your sales and thus increase revenue and profit.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: So that's another area that. And a lot of PR agencies and marketing agencies don't understand that either. As a matter of fact, I've done a lot of work for those agencies for their clients because they didn't know how to do it.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I was interesting because I'm not going to name the scandal that's going on right now to date the podcast, but there's some stuff going on in Hollywood right now. It's all over a huge candle. But one of the. And everybody's focused on this one thing. But my, my viewpoint is like again, I just wrote an article about this. I'm like, this is the biggest news to come out of the scandal is that one of the people was paying a publicist $25,000 a month.
And, and my comment was just think if he had spent that money on a social media ghost writer and a done for you YouTube channel, I'm all in a year. Do you know where that guy like he wouldn't need Hollywood anymore because his brand would be so big. But in that system that's just what they do.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Well, that's just it. The Met if you don't have the right value proposition in alignment with your audience's true challenge, that could be better in the results they see. I don't care what lead gen, what SEO you're using. It's not that the legion is not. Is not good or the SEO is not good. It's because the SEO and the legion can only do what it can do based upon the message. And if the message is in alignment to that, then it's going to, it's going to be mediocre. And that's unfortunately what's going on in businesses across all industries. That message is, is so strategic important and that has got to be understood at the business owner level and every role and duty or duties in that organization, no matter how big they are. Most organizations assume they understand each other's role and duties, but they truly don't.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: So do you have any like secret sauce of how you help someone uncover a world class, you know, value proposition? Because a lot of people talk about it and yet there's still a lot of very mediocre.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So for me it's, you know, first you got to do an audience segmentation analysis. You got to really analyze their audience. You got to see what changes are taking place. I want to look at first maybe some, just general data, like look at some data that's happening in that industry and then go out and you know, it doesn't mean you have to go out and spend a ton of money for a professional marketing research company to go do that, but you got to get some feedback, you got to get some information and then even, right down to even personality types. That doesn't mean every person, that your audience is going to have the same personality type. But overall, I know for me, since I'm dealing with business owners, a lot of them are, most of them are going to have type A personalities. Okay. They're on the disc profile. A lot of them are going to be task oriented, meaning they're going to be Ds, they're going to be dominant. They're going to identify with what if questions. But if I'm asking them how to questions and why to questions and who questions, they're going to look at me and say, who the hell are you talking to? Get out of my way. You can't help me. But if I'm going, what if this could be better and if you did that, that and this, it can get you those results. See, D's want results, they don't want the details along with it. Show me how to get, get it done. That's it. But it, but you'd be amazed a lot of times the message is if that other people that be targeting that type of audience are not speaking that language.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: Wow, I love it. You said something a minute ago. I think it just reminded me of conversation I heard one time where you were talking about the first thing you got to do is you've got to work with the business owner to kind of get out of their own way. And I, I had a client of mine, he's now a good friend, had a chance to go to Necker island and hang out with Richard Branson. With, I think there was 10 people, right? And they were at dinner and he was at the table and he, he managed to be able to sit right next to Richard Branson and, and he, you know, he's doing an eight figure business. And he, he said, he was talking to him and he said, Mr. Branson, I got a question for you. Like, you know, I'm, here's my business, this is what I'm doing. Like what do I need to do to, to you know, because build a billion dollar business. And, and he said, he's like I'll never forget about it. Richard Branson just looked at me and he said you need to get rid of all of your bad millionaire habits because that's what's keeping you stuck.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah, he's exactly right. Your habits will either make or break you. And when we say habits it's not just your. Well, personal habits are going to be the big part. Yes. But it's also, it's also you're this doing the same old. This is why you ever see sale a company and they'll send, let's say they have 100 salespeople and they'll send them all to a 23 day sales training and spend $100,000 for the training. Let's just use that map. And they're like wow, what this was a great training. And everyone's all pumped up. And then three, four days later what ends up happening? People default right back to the same old the way they were doing things. Nothing has changed because there's no accountability.
And this is why these things because again there's the habits are still. They, they haven't addressed the habits. They haven't even addressed the emotional intelligence side of it. The, the. This is why the 8020 rule, it usually stands true. You're always going to have the, the. The. The 20% of your sales force that's going to produce 80% of the results and 80% of the sales force is going to produce less than 20 because there's a difference in the level of confidence. If you work on the foundation more with those people not teaching them sales one on one and how to do a discovery call and how to sell features and benefits but get them to work on their own state of being that they can learn to vibrate at a higher energy. Learn how to ask more questions, learn how to communicate more effectively with active listening. These are the things they don't teach in these things and then you don't have the accountability. It's like with anything. Yes, it could take three weeks to form a habit but it takes six months or more before it's embedded at the subconscious level. The reason why a lot of these things don't take. Take hold is because there's no accountability and they don't want to, they don't want to take the time. It's, it'll. We don't have that time. Well I guess you, you're not going to have the time to still be making a half a Million or a million dollars for the next five or six years, 10 years. But if you make the commitment over a year, maybe in the second, third year, you're gonna, you're gonna now go from a million to 4 or 5 million or 6 million or 10 million.
But if you're not doing it, maybe your competitor will. And what are you going to do now? So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it starts here. This is, it's how we think. It's and, and, and it's, I call it the foundation. The fourth four. I call it the four pillars of success Foundation. Emotional intelligence, how we think. Preparation number two, if you don't prepare and break down goals, not many, many of the goals I see out there are very vague. There's a lot of wants and, and needs. Those are two words that always get you caught up in the control you can't control. I don't even have those words in my vocabulary, but a lot of people use it thousands of times a day.
Execution, you got to execute. And everything that you have a foundation for and you prepared and then you got to measure.
Some people say they're measuring, but I don't truly think they're measuring to the level they should be and they don't have. Maybe they're not even using the right KPIs. And so these are the things that I, that I, in any business, I make sure that we use the four pillars of success and customize that to each and every business that I work with. No, I love it individually, team, and then overall as a business, collectively at all, through all three levels.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Well, this has been fantastic. So before we, we wind things up here, let's talk a little bit about your company, Empowered Fathers in Action. That's just such a fantastic name for a company. Empowered Fathers in Action, Inc. So what was the sort of the genesis of that and, and how did that come about?
[00:31:17] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I know you and I had talked offline about that. I mean for me, me it was a, it was a, a life changing moment I had with my father about. Actually it was just over 25 years ago now. My father passed away on December 30th of 1999 from cancer. He was a, he was 56 years old. I'm 57 now, so I'm only, I mean, a year older than he was when he had passed.
And you know, my, my dad and I did not have a great relationship. You know, when I was growing up, he was often busy working. He was A workaholic. You know, my dad grew up poor. He wanted to be very successful and he sacrificed a lot to do that. He sacrificed his family. So I would not, you know, I would go like two or three months without seeing my father.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: And as a boy, you know, that, that's, that has an effect. You know, when you're out there on the baseball field and you, you strike somebody out, you hit a home run and you look in the stands and your dad's not there. And other dads from, you know, the kids I had, my team, they were there. So that was kind of hard. So I grew up, you know, always with this strong need for validation. I, you know, I had a low self esteem as a result of it. Now, I'm not blaming my father. I mean, it is again, it was just, I was a product of what, what happened, you know, what is now. My dad, when he was dying, it was the day before he died. We, we had this moment where I was at his bedside and he was on morphine at the time. And I remember him looking over at me. He couldn't talk, his eyes were half open, half shut, but he was communicating to me. I don't know how the words were being said on his part, but it was, was speaking to me. And yet I could hear it. I can't explain it to this day, but I could hear what he was saying and he wanted in the. I guess this was his way of saying goodbye and saying, I just want to let you know I've always loved you.
I've always loved your brother. And I even, I loved your mother. My parents had gotten divorced. They've been divorced for a while. He goes, I know it didn't seem that way, but I did the best I could for what I knew. And then I realized, like, something clicked in me. And I said, you know, my dad was always the black sheep of the family.
My grandfather treated him like garbage, you know, always said he would amount to nothing.
And, you know, then I began to think my dad was just a product of his upbringing. How could he be the father that I aspired to be when he didn't know how to?
And that was the, the flip of the switch that went off for me. Where I went from being a victim, being angry every day of my life, always pointing the finger at everybody else, using excuses and that type of thing, complaining, gossiping. And I said, I'm going to take responsibility. So no matter what deck of cards that you've been dealt as an adult, you still, it's your Responsibility to do whatever you have to do with it to make it better. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I did and I spent, I've been on this journey now for, for almost 20. Well, 25 years basically at this point. 25 years doing this and, and I've never looked back. Was it easy? No. But I. The hardest person, the hardest thing you're ever going to do in your life is work on yourself. And as a business owner, if you're not working on yourself, then you know your business in itself is not going to be able to sustain or get to the level you would like to without it. I'm a firm believer in that. Yes, you could have, you can still do. Well, you could still, but it's not long term. And you know, Richard Branson would even tell you that, you know, because he worked on himself and he had success in many different businesses. So with that being said, that that's what inspired me to start Empowered Fathers in Action. To, to help families, to help dads and then help them, you know, to help develop future leaders. It, you know, it, you know, so the, that these kids, when they become adults, can become future leaders in their homes, their, their communities and their businesses.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: I love it. So if somebody's listening to this, this, this episode and they're resonating with what you're saying and they're like, my gosh, that's what I need in my life. How do they, how do they find you? How do they work with you?
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Well, the great but best place you could always find me on LinkedIn at Christopher Salem. I do have two websites. Sustainable success.net that's my business strategy acceleration business site. I also am a professional keynote speaker, breakout speaker. So you could go to my subject matter expert website, christophersalem.com but just reach out to me by email. Chris, Christopher Salem.com or
[email protected] either one is fine. I'd love to meet people, get to know them. It's about the relationship and no, you have to build rapport and trust before you, you, you know, decide where it goes from there.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Christopher, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: Thanks Travis, for having me. Yeah, cheer.
