speaker-0: Many of us live in a world where we're interested, but we're not committed. My head heard, I'll make you a champion, but what my heart heard was I believe in you. It wasn't just about being a champion in the ring, it was about being a champion in life. Many times people say, I need to find my purpose. Your purpose has been here the whole time.

speaker-1: What was that fuel for you that kept you enduring?

speaker-0: Understanding your big why, why that's important to you. Find someone that's not going to hold you particularly accountable to your dream, but someone who's going to hold you capable.

speaker-1: Today's guest is Chris Natsky. Chris has spent over fifty years in the world of martial arts and is now working to translate the philosophy and the lessons and the principles that he's learned from that experience into helping people turn meaningful goals into consistent action, which is like one of those meta abilities that if you can develop it, it's the required skill set, the required ability to turn the goal, the thing that you want, into consistent action

speaker-0: That's

speaker-1: required to go and achieve that meaningful goal. Right. So I was Very excited for this conversation with Chris. In our conversation, we discuss why worries can keep us stuck, how to break large goals into manageable steps, the difference between interest and commitment, and why steady improvement often works better than trying to change everything at once, among many other things. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share with a friend. Now please enjoy my conversation with Chris Natske. Chris, thank you so much for being here.

speaker-0: it's great to be here, Ian. Thanks so much for inviting me.

speaker-1: Chris, so a lot of people know what they want and may even know what they should do next, but they still cannot seem to move forward, right? Take that next step, do what they know they need to do in order to get what they want. And your work is built around helping people break through that point. So when someone feels stuck, right, maybe they know they want to make a change, they know what they need to do next. What actually has to change for that breakthrough to happen?

speaker-0: Yeah. Well, you know, I think a lot of times people, we are our own worst enemy, right? We can ex we can convince ourselves that it's outside factors and things that are holding us back. But from my own experience, when I left the corporate world to move on to my own experience of owning a business, in my case, it was a martial arts school, there was a tremendous amount of anxiety that came about. When I speak to audiences, particularly entrepreneurial audiences, I always say to them, or I ask them the question. I'll say, hey, you know, when you decided to go off on your own, was it not the most exciting experience as well as at the same time the most terrifying experience, right? Because what we have a tendency to do as human beings, we look for the the things that could go wrong. I mean, that's kind of why our species have survived, right? When we were going through the wilderness and if we weren't aware of the saber-toothed tiger, we became lunch. So there's something that is going on inside of us. So we have a tendency to look only at the things that could go wrong. And it is good to be able to be aware of that, but at the same time, we need to be set on our sights of where we want to go. And I think in my case, what held me back, and I see this happen with my clients as well, is we get too wrapped up into the things that can go wrong. And you know, it's interesting. I there was a study that was done years ago by a guy named Robert Leahy. He called it the worry cure. And I use this in one of my talks and What he did is he asked all these people to write down what they were most worried about happening in the upcoming month in their life. So things with their business, their relationships, their health and wellness, finances. And they wrote them all down. And they said, now go off and live your life for the next 30 days and come on back in about 31, 32 days. Let's see what happened. And here's what they found. Eighty-five percent of the time, the things they listed on that list never happened. Okay. Now, of course, many of the people in your audience might be thinking, well, fifteen percent did, right? But here's the thing. What they found was is that of that fifteen percent, seventy-nine percent of the time, those things either happened and they weren't as bad as they thought they would be, or they happened and they were actually happy because they learned from it. So if you net that out, ninety-seven percent of the time, the things we worry about most either never happen or they aren't as bad as we thought they'd be. So I guess I just challenge everyone. To look at their lives, their businesses, their adventures in that light, right? And to say, wow, if I take the the shot here, you don't want to be laying on your deathbed one day going, Man, I wish I could have, right? Is to go for it because most of the time, the majority of the time, when we take the risk, it's gonna turn out well for us.

speaker-1: Yeah. We suffer more in imagination than we do in reality. Right. We're kind of programmed. Yeah.

speaker-0: Right. I think it was Mark Twain that said, I've had a lot of terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

speaker-1: Right? Yeah, a hundred percent.

speaker-0: Our minds for us, just like you said.

speaker-1: Yeah. And you talked about that's just kind of like the subconscious way that we're gonna naturally look at things and kind of see the future is just kind of worried about all the things that can go wrong. And for you, in order to the kind of the first step in enabling a breakthrough to happen in your life is just like a change in perspective. It's just more of an awareness. Yeah, it's an awareness of that innate natural response that we're gonna have, which is just worrying about all the things that can go wrong. And then just being intentional about slowing down and just like, okay. Acknowledging that, thinking it through, writing it down, even like what are all the things that you're worried about could go wrong, and then just sitting it there on the paper.

speaker-0: Hundred percent. I think I think what you're saying there too, Ian, also makes sense because many people have a vision, but then they don't have a plan, right? And I'm not talking about a plan that just says from point A to point B. I'm talking about breaking it into small digestible chunks because now what happens you have little small goals that you can hit and keep your momentum going. I mean it's a lesson I learned from, you know, five decades of martial arts. You know, you don't have a white belt and a black belt anymore. You've got a belts in between, right? So if you can have those little incremental things, whatever those are for you, and you start building victories upon victories upon victories, now all of a sudden you start to build momentum.

speaker-1: And the the beautiful thing about breaking something down into smaller pieces, whether this is a larger goal that you have for your life, for the year, for the decade, for the next five years, for the month, whatever, or it's just a task, like a large task that you have for the day, right? Like I'm looking down at my daily planner journal right now. Like I have my most important task today is, you know, I have budgeted. It's gonna take me about four hours to complete this. And then what I just started naturally doing just 'cause Maybe it's me just delaying getting started, but I just find it easier. Like pretty much for any top priority task. I don't know if you can really pick this up on the camera, but I've like taken this large task of building this thing out and broken it down into the smaller pieces so that I can just kind of mentally just like, okay, I'm gonna start and just do this one thing. And I think at least for me when I do that, I find that in breaking it down into smaller pieces, it makes it easier to do the essential thing, which is just get started.

speaker-0: Just get started 100%. And you know, we something you said just sparked this in my mind as well. I think it's Stephen Covey who who talks about this, is that when you do have aspects that you do need to complete in your day, in your week, in your life, is to handle the big rocks first. I don't know if you know this analogy, but if you have like a a cylinder and you have sand, pebbles, and big rocks, if you put the sand in first, which is oftentimes what we do, right? Those are those little menial tasks we know we can get done. Because it makes us feel good. But if you put the sand in first, then the pebbles, then the rocks, they all won't fit. But if you put the big rocks in first, then pour in the pebbles and they'll like fill in the space, then the sand, and then rest. Now you can get all of it in the container. So I think that happens a lot, particularly for entrepreneurs. I know I've gone through that experience where i it just feels good to get those little ones off the, you know, off the list. Man, I'm doing something. Well, I'm busy, but I'm not productive, right? Yeah. And and I had a one of my mentors tell me one time is that busyness is the surest sign of laziness. And what he meant by that was is busyness means I'm staying active, but I'm lazy meaning that I'm not leaning into the big things that I really want to should I'm not that I should be leaning into.

speaker-1: Yeah. So it is really just about being intentional and creating that time throughout the day. This is came up in our last podcast with Ryan Foy, where we talked about this idea. It's like you can have this plan, you can have this strategy, you can have things thought through, which, you know, we discussed is something that some people don't have, right? Maybe they just have this aspiration to do this thing, but they don't create a plan, break it down into small pieces. But then even once you've done that, you've done the hard work of thinking things through. Then it's time to follow through, right? And do the things that you've committed to, the things that you say that you're gonna do. And a critical part of that is being intentional about carving out time, setting space for this thing to get done. And if you can, doing so in the morning, like first thing, eat the frog first, right? Eat the frog to start the day is another essential piece of that. Is just creating that intentional space, like because this all comes down to for most of these goals, these things that you want to do for yourself. They represent changes that you want to make in your life. Right. And these changes that you want to make in your life aren't just going to naturally happen, right? Like you bring up Stephen Covey, right? In that book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, that's where I first learned about the Eisenhower matrix, where there's tier one, tier two, tier three, tier four, different types of work, right? All organized by important, not important, urgent, not urgent. Again, we can flash that up on up on screen. So most of the goals that you take for your li that you have for yourself, the chain are represent changes that you want to make, right? The work that will go into making that change, whether in your life or in your business, represents what Stephen Cubby or the Eisenhower Matrix will define as tier two work, which is important but not urgent. Meaning that there's no external deadline for this thing ever happening. So you have to create your own artificial urgency and time dedicated to getting that thing done. But That idea of artificial urgency, because I've gone through this practice of, you know, I set a goal for myself, I think things through, I set a plan, then I carve out time. And then the day comes where I have that time carved carved off and it's like, well, maybe I'll just work on something else. Right. So when that happens, do you think it's just like a lack of urgency or like why does that still happen?

speaker-0: Well, I there are a couple of things. And you you just said, I mean, that was a gold piece of nugget right there. I was just thinking as you were sharing that, is that many of us live in a world where we're interested, but we're not committed. You know, we're interested in having something good happen for us, we're interested in opening up a business, having a breakthrough, et cetera, but we're not really, really committed. And I think one of the things that is best can help us is to outside of just having that vision. For what you want to do is literally put it into our calendars, put it into the things that are most important for us to do go into our daily schedules, not just like I think I'll get to it, but it literally lives there. And those are the things, as you said, do first. And then what happens is other things that support that or other aspects of your life that are important to you, they work around that. So for instance, professionally, if you're going to work on your business, again. I believe first thing in the morning you should be working on your biggest projects first. And you know, conversely, if you say that your relationships with your wife, your husband, your significant other, your kids is important, those things need to be anchored in your calendar as well. Because many times what we do, particularly people that are closest to us, we push that off, right? I'll get to it later. They'll understand. But what ends up happening is is nature abhors a vacuum. So that free time, that free space there will get eaten up by something. So if you're really, really committed to it, you're not just interested in it, you're actually gonna put it into a plan and that is anchored in your calendar. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah, had a client a few years ago. We were having a similar conversation. We were just talking, you know, at the time I was like twenty two, twenty three. He was older, late forties, had a family and stuff. And we were I was just asking him questions about, you know, he seemed to be very happy, healthy father, you know, husband, had a great relationship with his wife. So I just asking him questions about like things that I can learn from him. He's just asking me like, what are the things that I value in my life now? Right. It's like my health, you know. spending time with my family, my friends. Then he said, okay, show me your calendar. Right. So I pulled up my calendar and literally the only things that were on my calendar were things related to work, right? Different appointments, meetings, things like that. Right. And there was zero representation of the things that I said I value. Right. There was no blocked out time to go work out, to spend time with family, to spend time with friends. There was nothing of that was represented in the calendar. So obviously the calendar is one of those tools, those things that we use to to manage our lives in today's modern world. And like that is I mean, I I operate pretty much strictly by my calendar. so I think that's a good insight.

speaker-0: He he was a very wise friend because I mean he's basically saying the same thing that I was saying. I mean, I think that you could put a what you value you'll see in your calendar. It's just that that, you know, that simple. And it's very easy, you know, with all the distractions we have. I mean, you know, each one of us has one of these, right? You know, it's it's got more computer power in it than the lunar module that landed on the moon in sixty nine. It's in the palm of our hand, but we use it to watch cat videos and argue with strangers, right? So You know, how are we utilizing the tools that we have? But that has to start with backing up and having real vision for where we want to go. We need to be pro in my belief, we need to be proactive using those tools versus reactive. If you're proactive, then the reactivity, of course, you know, diminishes a lot because you've already set your priorities.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the reactiveness again is a is the default state. Like you have to take the time, right? Like and again it's just like I'm trying to get to like the question of like the this thing that's eating at the back of my mind right now is this idea that okay, everything that we're talking about requires somebody to have like the level of self awareness. One that they want to make a change and then two Like to take the time to really be intentional about shifting from reactive to proactive, right? Instead of just letting the day control them, the things that come up kind of dictate what they're doing, instead stopping and saying, No, like I'm gonna make decisions to make this change in my life, which again just kind of sounds like probably motivational rah-rah speech that you've heard in in a thousand other places, but it feels like there's there's a missing link almost before like I feel like what we're talking about is a big change for most people. Right, going from Yeah. Talking about myself, right? Like there's a lot of things that I would love to change, but it's like I'm kind of doing okay. It doesn't feel like there's enough like pressure for me to make this change. But in those moments, like if I th if I reflect back on my journey, it's like, okay, I'm not gonna work on this thing until I have to have it done like the next day. Like is there a way to make a change? without experiencing that super external heavy pressure, like kind of reaching a breaking point, right? Is there a way to change before you hit the rock bottom kind of situation?

speaker-0: Well, I would say yes, and we're human beings. So many times we don't make those changes until we have that discomfort. I will say one of the things that's I've really embraced and I do with my clients as well, and I think it's very important, particularly if, you know, the audience we're speaking to is entrepreneurs, you know, people that are thinking about moving off on their own. When you're in a structured corporate environment, you have someone you're answering to. And you know, you you have a structure within that. But when you're an entrepreneur, you oftentimes don't have that, right? One of my favorite books when I opened up my business many, many years ago was The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. And he speaks about the value of systems, right? And he he gives the I think the example is a woman who loves baking pies. So she decides she's gonna open up a pie baking business. And she pretty soon she realizes all she's doing at bait is baking pies. And the thing she loved before now is is just consuming her and she doesn't even like it anymore. And she realizes she's working for a lunatic. But the lunatic is her, right? And so one of the things that I found in my own life, and again, I I share this with the clients that I coach, is the power of powerful morning routines. Okay. So setting your day off from the very, very beginning. I have my own methodology that I call the six M's of morning mastery, something I do each and every morning. And that I share with my clients as well. And regardless of what people do, it doesn't matter if it works for them. But I'd be happy to share those six M's with you. But here's the thing. I devised the six M's because I started researching people that I admired and then people that I saw that were really on top of their game. And everyone almost to a person, Ian, had a solid morning routine. Everyone. So I thought, wow, that's something I can commit to, right? And it may be that you start with just one thing during the morning, but it starts to build. And now pretty soon that's it it it creates the the bedrock for your days because you know, powerful days, champion days, turn into champion weeks, which turn into champion months, which turn into champion years, which turn into champion lifetimes. So it's not like you're gonna wake up one morning and do it. You have to take the action. But I find is when you put those habits in place. Particularly early, now what happens? They just become natural to you. And now pretty soon that sets the stage for the rest of your days.

speaker-1: Yeah. I love it. Yeah, the morning routine is is huge. it's just something that again I picked up randomly. It's like one of those things like my morning routine and stretching, which go hand in hand. Stretching is a part of my morning routine that I for some reason I just started doing when I was in later in college and it just stuck. I'm grateful that I did. But I before we get to those six M's of morning mastery, I'm gonna do my best to to get to this question 'cause it's like rattling around in my head and I'd love to kind of stay digging deep with you here. So everything that we've talked about You know, requires a certain level of energy and, you know, urgency within the person, right? To to take action, to do the work, to make a change. And change in doing this work is uncomfortable because you're breaking habits, right? And we're we're habitual human beings. And creating this new habit, creating this new system, making a change, doing the effort, right? Putting in the hard work maybe after your job, it just takes a lot of energy and you know, it's hard work, right? It's not easy to do any of this stuff. It might sound easy, it's just like, yep, you're nodding along, but Half the things that we've talked about are things that I've heard before, but I haven't actually taken action on. So what do you see as like the prerequisite? Like what has to happen in an individual before they even like start thinking about making a change? Like what like is there like a recognition, like something that happens in them that kind of lights the fire within them to make a change, which will be the fuel that they use to kind of carry out and and take these steps?

speaker-0: Yeah. I think it's gonna it's going to be different for every one person. You know, some it might be this huge epiphany, other people it might be something, as you said, your stretching routine you just started getting to. but at some point in time you made a decision. And if you look at the root word of decision, it's to cut off all other options. Right. And so many times what happens is when our brain is split, when we have many decisions and options, what we do is we end up doing nothing because we get overwhelmed by all the other things. But If we clearly make a decision, that is the first step. The other step that I would say anytime we're introducing a new habit, and if you're familiar with James Clear's work, The Atomic Habits, love that book, he talks about the idea of habit stacking. So for instance, if you have a a habit that you're already doing each and every day, put a new habit stacked on top of that. So if you want to read affirmations every morning, And you brush your teeth every morning, you know, put your affirmations on your bathroom mirror as you're brushing your teeth so you can read them at the same time. So now what ends up happening is we get in a habit of doing that new activity. I was literally on the phone with my sister yesterday. We both live in the Denver area. As you and I were talking, you know, we're both have roots in Wisconsin, and that's where my mom still lives. So of course I want to be in communication with my mom. So what I started doing is every time I got in my car. drive somewhere, I would pick up the phone and call her. It just became now a habit. That's what I do. So now, you know, our relationship is really solid because I'm making the effort, of course, but I stacked it onto a habit that I I was already doing that activity. And if I'm driving 30 minutes one way, I can listen to sports radio, I can listen to something else, or I can talk to my mom, right? I'm just going to choose to talk to her. So if you have those habits you've already established, which most of us do. Go ahead and do your best to stack the new activity on so now it becomes part of a regular routine.

speaker-1: Love it. Yeah. And that idea of habit stacking was such a brilliant insight by James Clear. It's like you're okay, you know you already have this habit, you're gonna do this thing every day. Just start gluing the other things that you wanna start doing to those other habits just to make it as easy as possible. 'Cause I think that's one of those tactics of like making change is make it as easy as possible as you can on yourself to make this change. And one of those tactics can be to you know, stack it on top of the other things that you already do every day. Absolutely.

speaker-0: You know, I find and I and I speak about this as well is that when we want to have a breakthrough, we wanna have a change in behavior, as you said, or we wanna really make a major change in our life, many of us get really fired up at the very beginning, right? And the Japanese call it Ibo Bono Itu, which is hero at the beginning. Okay, which means we blast out and we try to go a hundred miles an hour and what ends up happening is that lasts for a couple of days and all of a sudden we start to lose momentum. And it because it gets so uncomfortable, and the way that I speak about is we go to what's called the panic zone, right? It's so uncomfortable we can't maintain the pace. And what ends up happening many times is we'll literally get slingshotted back to not only where we were, but sometimes we'll even regress beyond that point, right? And so when we go through this routine out and back, out and back, where what about this idea? What about when you are going to introduce a new activity, a new habit, whatever the case may be? You think about very small incremental behavior each and every day. Maybe if it's even a 1% increase in your productivity or in your activity or whatever you choose it to be. And now what happens, you go in what's called the stretch zone, right? And here's the thing that's really cool about that one percent if you if you extrapolate that out, that 1% improvement per day. If you decided to choose any activity and get 1% better at it each day, at the end of a year, at the end of the year, You'd be 37 times better than when you started. Pretty darn cool, right? What if you maintain that for two years? Well, most people will say, well, I'd be 74 times better because that's 37 times two. But that's not what would happen. What happens is you'd be 1,400 times better because good habits don't add up, they compound. And if you do that over five years, you're going to be 76 million times better. So, you know, it we're probably never going to go in that exact straight line, but you understand the concept. is if we just devote ourselves. And it's just like I use martial arts as an analogy. My students, I had over two thousand I have over two thousand of them that got to black belt. They didn't get there overnight. They got there through that consistent action. And pretty soon they started building momentum and that's where they got to be black belts.

speaker-1: What do you think your kind of underlying I think this might be the the way that I can ask this question to kind of get to where I've been kind of circling around, but like you talked about this idea that Japanese term of hero at the beginning, right? You start out with all this fire and then you kind of fizzle out and you can almost regress back further away than when you had started. So there has to be a certain level of like fire within you to carry you through that slog, the boring s the boring middle, right? To kind of endure and persist through these changes and the work that you have to do to get to the other side and experience that transformation in yourself. So for you in your own personal journey, what was that fire, that desire that you had for yourself in your own life, or just what was that fuel for you that helped that kept you enduring through that, you know, boring middle?

speaker-0: There are great question. There are several things and it's but it can't just be ins or motivation and willpower. It it just you won't sustain itself. You know, if you if you think about all the times you got all fired up and then a couple of weeks went by and you stopped the activity. I think the first thing, and I've kind of alluded to it already, and I I write about it in my second book, Breaking Through, is you begin with the end in mind and then you break it down, right? Into small little goals that you can hit to maintain your momentum. Got the idea from martial arts. We not only have belts from white belt to black belt of different colors, we have pieces of electrical tape that we put on the ends of the belts. We have these small incremental victories we get. The s the second thing is is understanding your big why. Why that's important to you. And I'm gonna give you a little story in my own life, an example. when I was gonna leave my corporate job and open up my martial arts studio, as I noted before. It was probably the most exciting time in my life, but it was also the most petrifying time in my life. I was married at that time. My wife at the time was extremely, extremely supportive of me making this decision. She had been we had been together since high school. She knew it was my dream to open up my martial arts school. But I was having all of this anxiety about, you know, I've got two kids I've got to raise. I'm the sole income person in the family. And I remember one very, very sp specific situation Came in as we were doing the build out of the martial arts school. So the dojo, you know, we're putting up the walls and the mirrors and everything. And I come, I'm still working in my corporate job, and I come in on a Friday, and she's there, my my wife at the time, is playing the role of general contractor, right? She's got the hard hat on, she's got the clipboard, the guys are there working, they got their circular saws, they're framing out the doors. And I get in there and I literally have a panic attack. I just I get freaked out, Ian. I'm like, my gosh. And I look at her and I go, This is the worst decision I've ever made in my life. I am so sorry I'm putting us through this. I'm going to call our attorney on Monday and I'm going to get out of this. Right. I'm not thinking rationally. And she looks at me and she says a few words that I'm not going to share right now. And then she says, We're going to talk about this after dinner. So I go home, I fix dinner, we have our dinner, we're cleaning up, and we sit down at the table. She goes, All right. Tell me what's up. And I'm like, worst decision I've ever made. I'm gonna get out of this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She listens to me for a moment. She lets me spew all over the place. And then she says, I'll tell you what. She goes, I supported you getting into this venture. And if you truly, truly want to get out, I'm going to support you again. I just have one request. I said, Sure, what is it? She says, My one request is, is that you sit our two boys down who were 10 and 6 at the time, you sit our two sons down. And you tell them why you are choosing not to go for your dream. Right? Just she sunk my battleship. You know what I mean? And I realized in that moment that I could not have that conversation with my sons. My whole life, you know, I had been told by my parents, you know, particularly my mom, you can do anything you put your mind to. I had been telling my boys that. And now here I was on the precipice of doing it myself, and I wasn't, I was going to pull back. And I couldn't have that conversation with my sons. So that was a huge why for me. To, you know, to be able to show that example, to provide a living that I could support my family, huge why. So when difficulties came, that's something I really, really leaned into. So that's the second thing. And then the third thing I would say is to find someone that's not going to hold you particularly accountable to your dream, a coach, a friend, a spouse. But someone who's going to hold you capable. And there's a huge distinction here. Accountable says, you said you're going to do this, you need to do this, you need to check in with me. Capable says is, okay, you told me what you want. I see that potential in you. I see your greatness. And I'm going to hold you to that standard. I think those three things beginning the end in mind, breaking it down, having your big why, and having someone who can hold you capable, that can be a real formula for success.

speaker-1: Bingo. That's what we were going for right there, for sure. That story, I mean, that is that hits deep for sure. And I think that rhymes with, you know, the underlying idea of at some point you have the preceding moment to your call to making this change and doing these things and going after your dreams in your life is this almost awakening or awareness of And for you it was I could not have this conversation with my with my sons that your dad didn't go after his dreams, right? Your dad didn't do everything that he could to, you know, live and do what he wanted, right? 'Cause that's what I would assume you want for your children, right? You want your children

speaker-0: Interesting that you know, there's a there's a post log to this story. My youngest son, my boys are both grown now, but my youngest son, about five, six years ago, he was actually doing he's a videographer and he was doing some filming of me for a martial arts thing I was doing on a Sunday afternoon of all days, right? And he says to me, He says, Hey dad, I'm I'm gonna go off on my own. He was had been working for a company where he was their main videographer. He goes, I'm gonna go off on my own. I'm like, that's that's great, Jason. I'm really happy for you. And in my mind, I'm thinking six months to a year. This was a Sunday. He said, I'm talking to my boss on Wednesday, right? I'm like, boom, I'm freaking out. But then I realized he was 33, 32, 33 years old, almost the exact age that I was when I left my corporate in order to go for my dream. So I'd like to think that by him being able to see that as an example, it almost gave him permission to do that as well.

speaker-1: Yeah. And as you're telling that story, I'm realizing that in my own story, I I as soon as I graduated college, I went and started a marketing agency with a friend just because that's what the example that my parents had had set for me, right? They were both individuals that had their own small business, right? They lived life kinda on their own terms, I suppose. Like they yeah, so that's just the example that I saw. It's probably another conversation, just how much we pick up from our parents. very interesting. I love that. So another thing that I was really curious to dig into with you is your extensive experience with martial arts training. How do you think kind of a big question here, but how did your experience in martial arts and going through that journey change who you are?

speaker-0: I mean it it it's probably along with my you know my my spirituality is the biggest influence of my entire life. I mean, I started when I was ten years old, right? And so I've now been training. This is my fifty-third year of of training. So I mean it's it's influenced every aspect of my life in so many ways, but not just from a physical standpoint. You know what I mean? It was it's all about You know, from the time I started, and I I'll just tell you this brief story. I started in nineteen seventy-three. Kung Fu was very popular on television at the time. This is a time when martial arts wasn't on every street corner like it is today. So I grew up very close to where you're at right now in southeastern Wisconsin, and came in, let my my mom finally let me go to this class, and I watched these guys and I was blown away. These amazingly powerful movements. And I was the only kid in the class. Because at that time, martial arts was just for adults. But I felt like I came home. And three years after that, I met a man that would change my life forever. In fact, his his main school is right down the road from where you're at right now. And his name is Grandmaster J.K. Lee. And Grandmaster Lee had recently moved from South Korea. He had very little money in his pocket, he had just learned English, but he had this burning desire to transform lives through martial arts. And one of the first times I was training with him, his school at that time was on the north side of Milwaukee. I was there, I was in the back of the room, my legs were spread wide, I was stretching out, getting ready for the training that morning. And he walked onto the mat and he has this amazing presence about him. And he's surveying all the students. And pretty soon I realize he's staring directly at me. So before I can move a muscle, he comes over and he sits down in front of me and he puts his right foot on the inside of one leg, the left foot on the inside of the other. He grabs the ends of my belt and with one push-pull splits me out to 180 degrees. Right? So Yeah, it's kind of the face I made right there. And so I like to joke, I learned I learned two really valuable life lessons that morning. Number one is anyone can do the splits once. But the second thing is, and the most important, is when he looked me in the eyes and he said to me, he said, I will make you a champion. I will make you a champion. Now, I was 13 at the time, and all I could think about was medals, trophies, the Olympics. I glided home to tell my parents what he had said. And clearly That was a great moment. But what I started to learn later on in life is it wasn't just about being a champion in the ring, even though I've had that experience, it was about being a champion in life. And the other thing that even came more present for me even years later is I realized that when he said that, my head heard, I'll make you a champion. But what my heart heard was, I believe in you. I believe in you. And as a young boy at that time, growing up with a father who was alcoholic that wasn't always the best male role model for me. And kind of in that search for that, he played that role for me. And now it it just it just opened me up because now I could start to see the possibilities for myself because someone who I truly revered, respected, and loved saw that inside of me. So that's just the origin story. And it's just, you know, grown from there. And I'd like to s hope that I've been able to. pay that forward with the students that I've been able to influence throughout my fifty plus years in martial arts.

speaker-1: Yeah. Really sometimes all it takes again in my own anecdotal experience is just one person to believe in you. Right. Right? Believe in this crazy idea that you have, or just believe in you as a person that you can go and achieve this thing. And the amount of like even again when you were just telling that story, like I was just seeing it in my head. And like that that is kind of how I interpreted it right away. It's like he believed in you, right? Like what kind of, you know, belief does that instill within you? 'Cause like you probably had never thought of that, considered that maybe for yourself ahead of time. But getting hearing it from another person said about you to you is transformative.

speaker-0: Yeah, and it 100% transformative. And I think, you know, if I I think it's it's not an overreach to say it put my life on a different trajectory at that moment. You know, and I maybe we didn't would I didn't realize it, you know, as a child or as a thirteen year old, but as I look back at it, that trajectory started right there. And, you know, it continued. I mean, I I'll be back in Wisconsin to celebrate his eighty fifth birthday in October and his fifty years of teaching martial arts in the United States. And, you know, he became my second father. And someone I I revere and love and respect incredibly. So, you know, but but the thing of it is is that, you know, hopefully all of us have the experience of someone in our life that is, has played that kind of a role for us. And I always, you know, encourage people when I work with them is who were those people? Think about that. And for some of us, unfortunately, that maybe didn't have that. How could you play that role for someone going forward? Because we get as much when we're giving in that instance. As we do when we receive, I believe.

speaker-1: Yeah, I a hundred percent agree. And I think that rhymes with a lot of the ideas. I don't have the book here with me, but A Return to Love by Marion Williamson talks about that idea a lot. Yeah. Of you know, anything lacking from a situation is just something that you didn't bring to that situation or you're gonna get as much as you as you give. then also rhymes with the idea of Bob Berg, who we had here on the podcast, the author of the go giver. Yeah. You you know, the leading you you give that book with that servant attitude. Yeah, it's amazing. Another big question for you, but I mean you've knocked every single one of out of the park so far. You talked about the idea of martial arts being a champion on the mat or in the competition, in that performance, equally as much about that as it is is as learning to become a champion in life. So if you could try, what do you think are some of the elements or the characteristics of somebody who's a champion in life?

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Well, basically this is my work now. I mean, I still am very active in the martial arts and I have an organization that I lead here in the Denver area, as well as I'm a vice president of an international martial arts organization. But when I'm not doing that and doing my speaking and coaching work, this is what I do. So in my business, Black Belt Leadership Speaking and Coaching, what I do is I use martial arts as a metaphor. And I basically have four key components when I'm speaking. I have seven qualities of black belt leadership, but the the four key ones that I I speak about is, and one I've already kind of alluded to already, but is to have a purposeful vision, right? Is is to have a vision that drives us, that inspires us. We've already talked about the big why. We've talked about the clarity, you know, and taking those small steps. But many of us, unfortunately, and I've gone through this before, we're very good at communicating what we don't want to have happen in our lives. Right. Like when I'm working with a coaching client. Why are we here? Well, you know, I don't want to I don't want to be unhealthy anymore. I don't want to be overweight, or I I don't want to have difficulties in my relationships, or I don't want to be at this job. And we're very, very clear about what we don't want. But we know now, it's been scientifically proven what we focus on will expand. So if we focus on what we don't want, we're going to continue to get more of that. So being able to turn that around and get a purposeful vision for where we want to go. Now, sometimes It can be even better than that. Or sometimes it can turn out differently. But at least what it does is it gets us on a trajectory where we're moving towards something versus away from something. So that's the first. The second is something I call conscious persistence. And I want to I want to highlight the key word in that I think is conscious. So all of us, particularly high achievers, and many of the people that might be listening to this right now, you're very persistent about a lot of things in your life. That's probably where I you got to where you're at. There are behaviors that we do each and every day. We're persistent. We have habits, we do them. But are we really conscious about them? Are they the ones that are really serving us? And the way that I kind of explain it is this is I'll use another martial arts metaphor, but if you were to do this with your hand, Ian, and make a fist and then bring your fingers over your thumb and you hit something, what would probably happen? To your thumb. You break your thumb. Now, what would happen if you practiced this a thousand times? What would you get good at? Breaking

speaker-1: Breaking your thumb.

speaker-0: your thumb. But how many of us keep doing the same things we've always done? Because that's just always the way we've shown up.

speaker-1: Even if they harm ya.

speaker-0: Yeah. So conscious persistence allows us to step back and say, okay, how can I readjust? What can I truly be assist persistent about? Another analogy I use is if you've ever been someplace, you're at a meeting, you're at work, you drive home those 30 minutes, and all of a sudden you're coming up your driveway, the garage door is going open, and you have no idea how you got home, right? Because you've been so lost in your thoughts. It's you were persistent about it, you were doing the activity. But you're unconscious to it. So where can you be conscious about the things you truly want to be persistent about? And then the final two work in concert with each other. I happen to believe that each and every one of us, the metaphor I use is the inner champion. Each and every one of us has that champion inside of us. And it's basically the way I define that it's the gifts that we were meant to share on this earthly experience, right? And we've all had those. And and I happen to believe that if each and every one of us was in tune with those gifts and we were actually able to share them, that's where our power and happiness lies. So getting clear about that, but then using those gifts as a way of service. How can we make the world a better place? Now it doesn't mean that we don't have, you know, a comfortable lifestyle and we don't have monetary gain, and that doesn't mean that at all. It just means that our focal point is to use our gifts to serve. And then the fourth one go works in conjunction with that is taking the inspired action to make that happen. Because many times we dream about it, but you got to take the action. Martial arts in and of itself is an action philosophy. You can't think about being a black belt. You have to work and take action to be a black belt. So those are the four key components that I would say that I use to explain my work and black belt leadership.

speaker-1: Yeah. And how to become a champion in life. Yes. Well said again. we had a previous guest talk about the idea too of, you know, I was asking him a difficult question. I think I I tend to be pretty good at asking those, but the idea of like where does like fulfillment, like how do you get fulfillment? And he talked about similar idea that fulfillment is found like we're just naturally geared to find fulfillment in the service of others. Right. You talked about this idea that every individual has this inner champion within them. Again, Marion Williamson in the book. Talks about this divine spark within each and every one of us, this unique contribution, this unique gift that we have to bring to the world. And I think the inner champion is something that, you know, is discovered within each and every one of us. Right. Again, it it's there, it's inherent in every individual, but it's not again, it's not really something that you're just gonna accidentally walk into and live with in alignment of. So do you have any ideas on how somebody, you know, like myself who maybe feels like I'm still searching. for maybe what that inner champion, that unique contribution that I can make to the world or somebody listening. Do you have any ideas and how we might be able to identify what that is for us?

speaker-0: Yeah, it it's an activity that I sometimes I don't do this with all my coaching clients, but I do it with with often with with with some of them. It's the idea of going back and look at your looking at your life and looking at the times in your life where you were absolutely inspired, fulfilled, open hearted, you know, all the way back to, you know, before kindergarten, what were the activities that you were doing, particularly where you were able to serve others, but that totally excited you, ignited you, et cetera, et cetera. You know, for me, it's when I was teaching and inspiring others. I I can go back to my time in in kindergarten when I persuaded everybody to play Batman in recess and kids were swinging off sw swinging off curtains and stuff inside and the teacher had to, you know, time, we're not doing that anymore, right? But he was about or in martial arts teaching or teaching, you know, my my my brother and sister as I was growing up, but as well as inspiring and then also in my athletic endeavors is Is playing that role as the example and the person that could inspire. And so the idea then is going back at your life in your life and noting all of those things because many times people say, I need to find my purpose. But my point in that exercise is your purpose has been here the whole time. And your purpose isn't necessarily a career, although it certainly can be, but it can show up in different elements of your career. You can be on purpose and have totally different careers that you're doing. if you are in touch with how you want to show up in those instances, right? So that would be, I think, a practical way of looking at it, examining your life, looking at those points where you are inspired, fulfilled, you know, really on top of your game. And particularly where you're able to make a positive impact with others. And now you'll see the common thread. And that I think is how you can make that work in your life.

speaker-1: Yeah. And once you have that awareness, once you've found it, then it's about taking intentional action to create more of those moments and create more of those opportunities where you can, you know, step into that inner champion or step into well your unique gift and offer that unique gift to the world. Because it's not gonna happen on accident, right? You have to create it. And one of the common threads in our conversation here today is that, you know, going through this journey, going through this process is not something that you do on your own, right? And if you want to have somebody who will believe in you, who will be able to kind of help shine the light on the path, keep you on track, hold you capable, as you talked about, right? Working with another person like yourself in that journey is a is a great way to do it. So before I get to my final question then, Chris, a recurring question I ask every guest. How can people, if they're interested in getting to help in any of the things that we talked about here today in this conversation, how can people find you?

speaker-0: Yeah, thanks so much for asking Ian. Simply go to my website, www.chrisnatskey.com, C H R I S, and is in Navy, A T Z and Zebra, K E.com. there you're gonna see all of my all my programs, my books, my my keynote speaking sizzle reels, et cetera, et cetera, coaching programs, et cetera. And if someone would just like to go ahead and and just reach out to me, love to have a conversation. Also, I believe I have up right now The six M's of Morning Mastery. So we talked about that a little bit before, but if they want to download that ebook, that's a free complimentary gift that I'd be happy to share with them as well.

speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. And we talked about the i idea that, you know, great days create great weeks, create great months, which create a great year, which create a great life, right? And the day starts with the morning. So yeah, dialing in that morning routine, I'm definitely gonna check out that six M's of morning mastery and see which parts of my morning routine, which boxes I already check and which I need to maybe flesh out some a bit more. But yeah, we'll have the links to all of that in the description of the episode. So for anybody listening, go check that out. Chris, my final question for you is a recurring question I ask every guest. If you had a giant billboard that could deliver one message to the world, right, everybody in the world could see for ten seconds, what would it say and why?

speaker-0: Yeah. I think I've already kind of shared it with you. You know, when I think about my life, I think about three key components. It's it's really about integrity and that's being true to yourself. It's about service and it's about in inspiration. And so if I had a billboard, it would say that each and every one of you has an inner champion inside of you. It's your role to it's your job to find that, to expand on it, and to use it in a way that can serve others. Not only for the betterment of yourself, but importantly the betterment of the world.

speaker-1: Absolutely. Chris, thank you so much for the time.

speaker-0: Absolutely. My pleasure. Thanks so much, Ian.

speaker-1: Thank you for listening. The main thing that I'm taking away from my conversation with Chris is that persistence is really only valuable if I keep checking where what I'm trying to be persistent in, like where it's taking me. So my instinct is to just automatically value consistency. I make a plan, build a routine, and try to follow it long enough to see that result. But a repeated action can become automatic. I can stay busy, keep checking the box and get better at something that no longer serves the goal and what I really want in my life. Chris's example is simple, right? So you can practice making a fist the wrong way a thousand times and punching. And if you do that, you're gonna get very good at breaking your thumb. So that gives me another question to ask myself when progress stalls. I should look beyond whether I follow the plan and like where I came up short. I need to look at what the plan is producing, like where it's taking me. Then I can keep what works, adjust what does not, and adjust kind of that final destination that I'm striving for. If you want to get connected with Chris, you can find his website, books, coaching programs, and the 6Ms of Morning Mastery Guide in the description of this episode. And if you're on a coaching program or you're an author of a book and you want to make it easier for your clients to engage with your ideas, download the free program execution system toolkit in the description. It'll show you how to install what I call execution infrastructure so clients can follow through and get results. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you in the next one.