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Shine On Success
Shine on Success is a dynamic, story-driven podcast where extraordinary entrepreneurs, visionary leaders, and resilient change-makers share their journeys to success, revealing both the challenges and the strategies that led to their breakthroughs. Each episode offers a unique blend of inspiring personal stories, practical business insights, and actionable advice, allowing our guests to connect with an engaged, growth-oriented audience ready to be motivated and uplifted. By joining us, you’ll not only have the opportunity to showcase your expertise and inspire listeners but also to be part of a powerful platform that celebrates ambition, innovation, and the courage to turn dreams into reality.
Shine On Success
Faith, Fire, and the Power of Winning One Day at a Time
This isn’t your average success story. In this unfiltered, soul-shaking episode, Chris Champions shares how faith, failure, and fierce focus transformed his life, from facing prison time to building one of the most powerful AI-driven podcast networks in the world.
You’ll hear how Chris turned storms into strength, failure into fuel, and how he uses faith and AI to help entrepreneurs win one day at a time. Whether he's talking about shaking hands with Steph Curry, surviving a stroke, or being rescued by his dogs, every story is layered with truth, fire, and purpose.
If you’ve ever felt like giving up, doubted your path, or needed a wake-up call to bet on yourself, this episode is it.
👉 Be warned: it’s bold, it’s real, and it might just change how you see your life, your faith, and your future.
Connect with Dionne Malush
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What's the one thing you want people to know about you before we even get started? Because today's guest isn't someone you meet. He's someone you feel. Chris Champions played the long game in over 120 software and crypto ventures, built an empire in Las Vegas and is the go-to connector for heavy hitters in business, tech and personal growth. He's not just building companies, he's building legacies. Chris is raw, he's real. He's got more wisdom in one sentence than most people do in a lifetime. His Champion Connections community is bridging power players through text, while his AI platform is reshaping how entrepreneurs get on podcasts and in front of the right people, doing in a day what most couldn't do in a year, which, if you know me, you know AI is one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1:So what makes him so powerful? It's just not the network or the money. It's the faith, the values and the fire. From rescuing dogs to writing comeback stories, chris is out here to make every day count. So buckle up, because this one's not soft filtered or politically correct. It's straight from the gut. So let's go. So welcome Chris. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I gotta tell you no joke, dion. That was the greatest introduction I've ever had. In my entire life I've done over 2,000 interviews. That was the greatest of all time.
Speaker 1:I'm good at this stuff.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'll be good at everything but I'm definitely really good at this I was sitting here, I just I couldn't say a word. I was like man, this sounds good.
Speaker 1:Sounds like someone you want to get to know, right.
Speaker 2:I was going to say. I was like this is amazing, let's go. And then this guy just started jumping off and he was like wait a second, wait a second, that lady's talking about my guy. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Theo the king.
Speaker 1:Hi Theo. I have two wiener dogs, so I get the little dog love. Oh, and who's this?
Speaker 2:I wasn't a little dog guy until these two came into my life. And this is Gracie, his sister. And she's like listen, you know I'm camera shy, come on, can you just give up the cheese? We just want the cheese.
Speaker 1:They just want the cheese. My dogs love cheese, so I just got a new one. She's only three months old, her name is Mercy and her middle name is Grace.
Speaker 2:So Mercy, grace Mercy and Gracie strip, let them go out and have some fun one day.
Speaker 1:For sure. So you may or may not know this, but my favorite question is what is one thing you want people to know about you before we even get started?
Speaker 2:I think, as I've gotten older, the one thing I want people to know is that faith matters. You know, until I started going through some challenges, I didn't realize that God is there every step of your life. And, whether you you don't know it, when you're going through the storm, all you see is the storm. But you don't realize it that that storm is God's way of making you stronger. God doesn't give you more than you can handle. He gives you exactly what you can handle. He knows what you're capable of, and it's only after the storm has passed that you realize holy shit, I'm stronger because of the storm.
Speaker 1:I agree with you, and there's always so much light in that storm if you just look for it. So right now I'm going through one of the biggest storms of my life. My husband just had a liver transplant 18 days ago. So we are going through something, but the positives in it are amazing. And while we were at the hospital we met someone that just Saturday had a liver and a heart transplant, so we got to spend time with him and get to know him. So for two weeks we've learned about this amazing human and so we found light in a day that was so difficult. But we're here and where he's getting better in every way, every day. I just feel so confident that God has this. So thank you for sharing that. And one thing just reading about you is that you're known for being a straight shooter, a connector and a man of massive faith. But I want to go back. What shaped that mindset early on? How did you get to that point?
Speaker 2:So I've always been an entrepreneur. When I was 18 years old, I became a commodity broker and worked at the Board of Trade for six years and from that point on I basically have made my own paycheck and, at the end of the day, I started embracing being an entrepreneur early on in my life, but later, as I embraced being an entrepreneur, I also embraced other entrepreneurs. Being an entrepreneur it's basically you're alone, your friends when you start. I know people that start a restaurant or even like a donut shop, and their friends don't become their best customers. New customers become their best customers. Social media followers become their best customers, but their friends try to talk them into all the reasons why they're going to fail.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, your donut shop. It's going to fail. Like you know, donut shops fail. You know you're taking a risk. Oh my God, I don't come to me when you need some help, because I know you're going to be in that tough spot. No, it's not your friends that come to support your entrepreneurialism. I go out of my way to help entrepreneurs, to support them, because entrepreneurs, I think, are the rock stars of humanity. They're the ones that literally go where no man has gone before or woman has gone before you. Look at the greatest entrepreneur of all time, elon Musk. He's literally building rockets. He's literally building electric cars. He's literally doing so many things that are elevating and helping mankind. He literally may actually populate Mars another planet.
Speaker 2:And, if you think about this, that's not the government doing all these things. That's one individual. That's an entrepreneur with a team of people behind him that are basically a visionary. They see what the road ahead looks like before they get to the road ahead. You know the donut shop the example that I give is a friend of mine and she makes these unbelievable donuts. She'd be pissed right now. She'd be like, oh, they're not donuts, they're crullers. Like okay, they're donut crullers, it's all the same, but they're actually different. They're flaky and, yeah, it's a cross between a croissant and a donut.
Speaker 2:But at the end of the day she saw what she was going to have before she even signed the lease. She saw the amazing food she was going to make. She saw happy customers. She always tells me I see my happy customers before they walk in my door. I dream about my happy customers before they walk in my door. I dream about children eating my product and laughing and smiling before they walk into my door.
Speaker 2:Partly is because each one of her donuts has about 400 grams of sugar. I'm pretty sure those kids are hopped up on sugar and cocaine. Not that she's putting cocaine in the donuts, but you give that much sugar to a small child. Yes, we're going to be happy. It's artificial happy. Anyways, I give her a little bit of grief because she should go easy on the sugar. But yeah, I'm pretty sure her donuts are jam-packed with sugar. Where do you live? Entrepreneurs that see the road ahead? They see it in their mind, they see it in their mind's eye, they see it in their dreams and they're the ones willing to risk it all to get there. And we should honor them.
Speaker 1:I've been an entrepreneur my entire adult life. Other than once I tried a job, but I knew that that was not the way that I was going to. I could not have people telling me what to do ever, so I've been an entrepreneur a long time. Entrepreneurs cannot do a job.
Speaker 2:They can't do it.
Speaker 1:I don't like to be told what to do ever. So I think I want to know this. I think this is kind of a cool question what was your dream job as a kid? Because you went 18, you went right out into entrepreneurial lifestyle, right? What did you dream about?
Speaker 2:I don't think I have a dream job, but I do have a unique skill where, if I see something, I can very quickly, in my mind's eye, figure out how that can be a business. So, for example, I'm building a software tool that will launch here pretty soon, and yesterday I had a talk with the dev team and it's what we're building something that's never been built before, but it's a spinoff of a product that I did in 2009 called Juno Wallet, where young kids 13 to 28 were able to download other apps and get rewarded in an Amazon gift card credit.
Speaker 2:And we literally built the first electronic distribution of those gift cards to the wallet users, the end user. Well, we had gamers all over the world basically downloading other apps because they wanted Amazon gift cards and we created that relationship. I realized very, very quickly, when somebody comes to me with a business problem, I see the solution clear as day, and sometimes it's amazing and that's a gift that God gave me. But I can see that Now I have friends of mine that have you know a good friend of mine, John. He says to me hey, you know, you're always investing in all these businesses, You're always putting time, effort and money into all these businesses, but they don't all succeed. And I said, yeah, I know 80% fail, but those are my teachers, those are the ones I learned the lessons from, so that the 20% that succeed benefit from those. That's when class is in session. When you fail, I always tell people that's when class is in session. You better be learning.
Speaker 1:That is so good. So have you ever written a book?
Speaker 2:I have a book coming out, yep, and people think that it's about faith in God, which it is, but 80% of the book talks about having faith in yourself.
Speaker 1:I'm so flipping out right now, go ahead huh, I'm so flipping out right now.
Speaker 2:Go ahead, that is so cool. Imagine when you wake up every morning if you literally were daydreaming and you see off at the side of your bed a guy in a white robe with a long white beard just munching on a bag of popcorn. He puts the popcorn down right when you're waking up and he's like yeah, I can't wait to see what you do with today. You're getting a brand new day. I know you're gonna crush it. You're in the bathroom. You're brushing your teeth. He's munching away in the popcorn. He's like let's go, let's go.
Speaker 1:That's God.
Speaker 2:When we came into this world, god whispers into our ear greatness is your destiny, my child. He made us to be great. He wants us to be great. His faith in us is here. Our faith in ourselves sometimes is here. I always tell people why don't you have as much faith as God has in you? Raise the level of faith that you have in yourself. If you have faith that anything you can do is possible, there is nothing you can't do.
Speaker 1:Wow, Chris, we could just hang up the call right now and we've gotten so much great information already. But I really want to go back to your grandmother, your grandmother Jewish.
Speaker 2:But it was World War II and they were killing everybody and she had to flee Germany and she had to literally get across 11 miles of minefields just to get to the American troop and she had to come across on a Navy ship for 30 days and on that Navy ship she learned English, she learned poker and she also learned that sailors love to swear and that they want to get your attention. They'll use the word fuck a lot. So my grandmother taught me growing up very early on in life People listen to 75% of what you say when you don't swear. They listen to 100% of what you say when you do swear. Now I don't swear at people and I don't try to offend anybody, but at the end of the day I've learned that if you are transparent and you are just yourself and you embrace yourself.
Speaker 2:My grandmother taught me this lesson also. She said in life you're going to meet people and 40% of them are going to like or love you. 20% are going to be indifferent, but they're going to respect you and the other 40% are probably going to dislike you or hate you. She said to the ones that like and love you the 40% show them love. To the 20% that are indifferent, show them respect, love. To the 20 that are indifferent, show them respect. And to the other 40. Fuck them all. Don't give them one second of your life oh boy, chris, that was just perfect.
Speaker 1:So I have a question, because this is something. I have a friend who uses that famous f word quite a bit and he's very faithful too. So I say, how do you do both? How can you swear like a sailor and be faithful?
Speaker 2:I get that question a ton, I literally get. They're like oh, does God want? God doesn't want you to swear. I'm like I'm pretty sure God wants me to get people's attention. I'm pretty sure God wants me to speak to people while they're paying attention. So if I swear, god wants me to swear, not at people, but he wants me to swear to get their attention. And that's literally the only thing I do is I get people's attention by using swear words because, at the end of the day, it's just who I am.
Speaker 2:I grew up on the streets of Chicago. It was a rough area, it was a rough neighborhood and at the end of the day, I learned those streets growing up, as they were a part of my normal English language. And, by the way, if you're really honest with yourself, everybody swears. Don't be fooling yourself. You want to go to have everyday conversations. People use swear words. They use the word ass and they use the word fuck, and they use these words to describe things, and then, when they're pissed off, they use them even more emphatically. But as long as you don't swear at people, belittle them or make them feel bad, as far as I'm concerned, I think God wants me to just get people's attention. That's what I tell people all the time.
Speaker 1:And you're really good at it. You're really good at getting attention. I can see that in just a short period that I've known you. So let's talk about personal battles. You've had some right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you have to. You have to get kicked on your ass. God, God, let's, let's life kick you in the ass every now and then just to wake up.
Speaker 1:So how did you fight your way out of that? What is something that you just give me, a story that you could tell me about going?
Speaker 2:through. I can tell you a great story. I was literally in a day of sentencing for doing some stupid things and I was in a courtroom with a judge and I was getting a sentence. I was looking at three to five years of life in jail and I literally remember it like it was yesterday. I said God, if you give me a chance to do better, I will do better, I will live a better life. And this woman, the state's attorney, was all gung ho. My attorney tried everything and she was the judge. She opened up my file and she looked at the state's attorney. She said listen, we've got real criminals that we have to deal with. I want you both to come in there and come out with a deal. And they came out with a deal three years probation. And during that, three years probation.
Speaker 2:I had this test every 30 days as part of my probation and if I failed my sobriety I would do the entire five years. That was my agreement with the court. So my first day of probation I thought to myself I got to stay sober. Like I got to stay sober. I got to stay sober for three years.
Speaker 2:And I started thinking of it as three years and it became overwhelming and I got nervous and scared and then I started breaking it down. I said I got to stay sober for six months and then that got overwhelming. And then I said, okay, I got to stay sober for 30 days, let me just do 30 days. And then that got overwhelming. And then finally I said, all right, fuck, I got to stay sober for a week, let's just focus on a week. And after a while that got anxiety. I got anxiety over that and then I said to myself, all right, I'm just going to stay sober while I'm awake today, I'm just going to get through today. And I literally started literally looking at staying sober as winning the day. I said, okay, if I stay sober today, that's a win and then I can focus on day. And I did that for like 90 days and after 90 days of mentally telling myself that I won this day by not drinking, by staying sober, I started literally changing my mindset. I started realizing that I had to win this day. I didn't have to win tomorrow or this week or next month, I had to win this day. And when I started living my life by that mindset, I started becoming very hyper successful in all areas of my life, not just my sobriety. And it's when I started winning this day and making each day count that I started living a different life.
Speaker 2:And at the end of that three years of probation which I did not fail any of my piss test I went back in front of the judge and she said you know, you have to do your allocution, where you have to tell the judge what you've learned. And I said I am a new man, I am a different human being, I am sober and I am living each day and making each day count. And I remember the look on her face. She's like you know, a lot of people fail even after getting through probation. I have hope for you and I realized that I was given another chance by God and I also was given another chance to live a new life, like that was my old life. My new life was a life of sobriety.
Speaker 2:My new life was a life of winning each day, making each day count, and I literally teach people this all the time, because a lot of people get overwhelmed, especially young people, and I hate to say this, but for young women it's very scary because of social media, because they have to work out, because they have to be pretty. They have so much anxiety and I say listen, you know what, don't worry about all that stuff, just focus on finding three things that you can take ownership of and win today. And if you win this day, then tomorrow, when you wake up, try and win that day. And when you put wins together and start stacking wins up in your life, you're going to see that your life has changed, that your mindset has changed, and when you get your mind right, you can get your life right, you can get your money right, you can get your body right, you can get your health right.
Speaker 1:So I had a question about that. What is the mindset shift that they need to do to win this day? And is there something that you do every day? Because you said something about waking up and you know, tell me about that. Is there something that you can share with our audience?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a lot of people wake up and they're in a hurry to brush their teeth and grab that first cup of coffee and get going out the door. And you know a lot of people. They're like OK, you know, they're chasing their life, they're not planning their life, they're chasing it, they're hoping to not miss the bus.
Speaker 2:And I tell people, if you can wake up at six o'clock, you can wake up at 545. And my grandmother used to always tell me, if you're not early, you're late. And I always tell people listen, I take 15 minutes in my day to start my day. Granted, I walk my dog, which is a great way to be, have peace and quiet. Peace and quiet, I said.
Speaker 2:And I tell people, you know, at the end of the day, if you take 15 minutes to start your day and just thank God for all the things you have, lord, I thank you for this day. I thank you for the roof over my head, the food on my plate, I thank you for my health, my happiness, I thank you for the opportunities that I have ahead of me and you just take 15 minutes and talk to God. By the way, god's the greatest podcaster of all time. He will literally talk to you any time of the day. He listens all the time. He literally is there to have a conversation with you whenever you want.
Speaker 2:And if you just take 15 minutes to start your day and do 15 minutes of gratitude where you're grateful for the things that you've been given not the things that you don't have, because the things that you know, god gives you. These things that he gives you every single day, the rest he lets you hustle for. God gives you all that you need, everything that you want, he lets you hustle for. And people don't realize that God gave me all that I need. The rest, he lets me hustle for. Oh, I wish I had a Lamborghini. God lets you hustle for it. Oh, I wish I had a better pair of gym shoes God lets you hustle for it. God is the greatest entrepreneur of all time. He wants people to hustle.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited about what you just said because I say that in a different way, a lot, lot to people you know and I go through a lot, so I believe that I can share with other people to help them get through it. So I feel like God uses me as that vessel right, and a lot of people are like that.
Speaker 1:But I recognize yeah and I help people and I it's just amazing to have a gift like that. But then I, you know, want to talk about that champion AI, because there's something special about this. It says I read about it doing 40,000 plus man hours a day of work. So what problem does it solve and who is it for?
Speaker 2:How did you and I meet? I don't know you got an email from me, didn't you?
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 2:yes, it was a pretty amazing email. In fact, it's funny that you mentioned this, because I'm going to do something for you.
Speaker 1:This is going to blow your mind.
Speaker 2:Okay, I like it. It should blow your mind. If it doesn't blow your mind, I'll be shocked. Okay, I thought I was easily going to be able to find you. Give me one second.
Speaker 1:Let's chop it up. I'm just going to go look for myself.
Speaker 2:I'm like how did I find him? All right, You're Dion. Just listen to your latest episode of Shine on Success with Sylvie DiGhiustu. It struck a chord. Her journey of breaking the mold and creating a unique path in leadership was incredibly inspiring. Having navigated an entrepreneurial landscape myself, having invested in over 120 startups and playing a pivotal role in raising $300 million, does this?
Speaker 1:sound familiar to you. Yeah, extremely, I was like whoa he actually listened and you were like blown away.
Speaker 2:You're like whoa, this is a fan. I was blown away, truly, you listened to my most recent podcast. Well, I must tell you the truth you didn't. That wasn't me.
Speaker 2:In fact every single night, my AI listens to about 700,000 podcasts and takes the audio file and transcribes it into a text file and stores it on AWS, a server. And then I have a different AI agent that looks into there for keywords like entrepreneurialism and the type of shows I want to be on, and when it finds those, it builds a community for me. And then I have a third AI which talks to them in a conversational voice and sends them an email, of which I have an AI that basically has verified every email address of every podcaster and I have the largest database of verified emails in the podcast space. So all the heavy lifting, all the work that I possibly don't have the time to do, my AI does for me, and that work alone takes up about 40,000 man hours, that's a thousand people that would have to do a week's worth of work to do that for me in 24 hours, and my AI does that every 24 hours.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 2:I love AI, I tell people this all the time AI is the scariest thing I've ever seen and it's the most powerful thing I've ever seen. But I also tell people this, and I've got a book. I'll send you the audio file for free. I have a book coming out in two weeks called AI or Die the Survival Guide for the Future, and, at the end of the day, people have to use AI to work for them or their business will die.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you and, by the way, going to an AI tool and typing in some prompts and getting a return, that's not getting AI to work for you. That's just using AI as a tool. The way you get AI to work for you is that it works for you while you're sleeping as a tool. The way you get AI to work for you is that it works for you while you're sleeping. It's doing work for you 24 hours a day, and all the work that I just described to you, that my AI did to introduce us all that work I don't really need to do that work.
Speaker 2:I don't have to listen to your podcast to know that I want to be on it, because I've got keywords. I can tell my AI what I want to be on. I don't have to write you that email because my AI can write in a conversational voice and introduce me, but once we started dialoguing, the AI steps out of the conversation and everything else you and I did via email. And now today we're having the conversation that I ultimately wanted to do. See, I just want to do the conversations, all that other heavy lifting. I want the AI to do that for me so I can scale faster. Let me give you one last thing that'll blow your mind. By January 16th of this year, my personal income exceeded all my personal income of 2024 by the 16th, not because I had one big deal fall in my lap, but because I was able to scale myself to today I have literally AIs doing 400,000 man hours of work Every 24 hours, every single day.
Speaker 1:Wow, I am shocked. I'm not speaking. How do you help other people with that?
Speaker 2:We offer it as a managed service. We literally have clients all over the world that are using our platform and we actually do what's called human AI, where we put a human between them and our tools so we can help them manage and literally help them get on podcasts. I've literally built an AI tool set that literally focuses on one vertical and that is getting people on more podcasts and getting more podcasters more good interviews. I think podcasting is the best long format advertisement you can do for yourself, your brand, your product, your business, you name it.
Speaker 1:I 100% agree with you. I think it's amazing and I think everyone should have one. There's so much opportunity in this space.
Speaker 2:We're funny to say that because in the last five years we've seen podcasts go from 100,000 to 4 million and I saw a report recently that said in the next five years we're going to see 40 million podcasts out there, that everyone's going to have a podcast, or basically use podcast as a tool.
Speaker 1:That's. It makes sense to me. I think it's such a for me. I think it's like the greatest networking opportunity I've ever had.
Speaker 2:I have met network but you meet high value people and you literally carve out an hour where you literally have a deep discussion. You're not sitting there tweeting or texting or doing some other bullshit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing and I like, like you talk about Sylvie. She was, we did something that's one of in the world, like I was, like she was on my podcast, and here you are creating this amazing AI. So I feel honored that you're here today with me. I feel like you know God is aligning me with some amazing people. That's what I have to say.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, he does. He does bring people together for a reason. I always tell people, whether you know it or not, there's a plan for your life and there's a plan for the people that God brings into your life. Sometimes God brings people into your life so you know who you don't want in your life. You get rid of them. God also wants you to get rid of people that are toxic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I spent a lot of time getting rid of that. I want to ask you this question. I think this is kind of cool. So you place people in these high impact podcasts. That's what you do, but what's a key to building a personal brand that actually stands out and doesn't get lost in the noise? Because there is a lot of competition, right? So what is a key that someone could use in business to stand out?
Speaker 2:This is the one thing I tell people all the time Be transparent, be your authentic self, embrace who you are. Listen, I got a book that I'm working on called Zero Fucks, and, at the end of the day, if you worry about what other people think of you, those people have not made you and they will not break you. They are not the reason that you will be successful. You are the reason you will be successful. So, be your authentic self, be transparent, be who you are. And if there are people that don't like you or they want to criticize you on social media, fuck them. Do not fucking worry about them. In fact, I think people worry about social media and people too much that it's almost made social media toxic, and I tell people this all the time Be yourself, be who you are, because guess what? 40% of the people out there are going to love you or like you, 20% are going to respect you or just be indifferent, and the other 40%, fuck them all. Do not waste one second of your life with any of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when I heard that quote one time, what other people think of you is none of your business. Ever since then it's changed me. I do not care anymore.
Speaker 2:I bet you live a better life. I bet you're super happy. I bet you're at relief with yourself. And you look at some of the like social media cancel culture and all the bullshit that people were doing the last couple of years. I laughed at that stuff. You know people like oh, you know one guy I know he's like well, you know you don't have a million followers. I'm like I don't give a fuck. I don't want a million followers that just follow me because I've got to have some sort of North Korean bot farm hitting the follow button on some social media site. I don't need that number to validate me. If you need that number to validate me, then you're not listening to me. You're looking at the numbers and some numbers are just North Korean bot farms. Shout out to all the North Koreans hitting the follow button.
Speaker 1:That's so great. I also used to worry about that too. Now I never even look at it, I don't care, although I did have my greatest post ever. You know what it was about my husband going through liver transplant and the reason why sugar was the drug, not the drugs like they talk about all the time Sugar and so.
Speaker 2:I got. I've had to give up sugar in the last eight years just to live, and I tell people this all the time. Sugar kills. It kills you slowly each time you put it in your body. My birthday cake that's sitting in the freezer that probably got way too much sugar in it. When's your birthday In 12 days?
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:I went to my groomer and they got me a birthday cake and it was chocolate and as long as I have small amounts of it in the morning I can burn that sugar off, but yeah, it was. There's certain things that I just. I know sugar kills, but everything in moderation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you still have to. I mean, you can't get rid of it altogether, it's impossible, but it is the effect of. You know, liver cirrhosis of the liver did not come from drinking. He doesn't drink at all.
Speaker 2:You'd be shocked what it does to your pancreas too.
Speaker 1:I can't even imagine this is hard enough to go through, trust me, but he's doing good. So another question I have for you is most people want access to high value rooms, but don't know how to stay in them. What's your number one rule for building relationships with powerful people?
Speaker 2:Same rule that I just shared with you be yourself. Some people. It's amazing. I throw these high end dinners and I've done about 294 of them dinners, lunches and breakfasts, where I put high value people in a room together and what I say? Basically let the magic happen. But I always watch people come to these dinners and lunches and breakfasts and some people are natural, they're comfortable with who they are. Other people they want to be polite, they want to be politically correct, they want to be very soft spoken, blah, blah, blah. Hey, listen, I'll give you guys. I'll give you an example. I once had a very famous person, stephen Curry and Draymond Green sit on a first class seat area on a flight from San Francisco to Vegas and everyone's worried about saying hi to them. I, literally the second, I knew who it was. I shook their hand. I said hi, my name's Chris, and we just I shook their hand like you know, like I meant it.
Speaker 2:And I shook their hand like I meant it. And I shook both their hands and I said nice to meet you, guys. And they said nice to meet you too, Chris. And they were normal. They were normal human beings.
Speaker 2:I tell people this my grandmother taught me this growing up when you first meet somebody, reach out your hand, shake their hand like you mean it and introduce yourself. We live in a time right now where just that act alone has separated me from so many people and has introduced me, and I've gotten to know some of the most valuable people on the planet by just doing that. And at the end of the day, if you just reach out your hand and introduce yourself and when I say shake somebody's hand, I mean shake it like you mean it you know some people. The whole like milking the cow udders. First of all, men, if you're shaking a hand like this, learn how to fucking shake your hand. Do not fucking give somebody the limp hand and, by the way, lady, I know it's like ladylike to give them the limp. No, grab that hand like you mean it, Pull them in, Let them know that they just shook a real professional woman's hand. Don't worry about being ladylike, I get it, I get it. Grab that hand and grab it like you mean it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm with you on that 100%. Especially when a guy shakes my hand like that, I'm like are you serious?
Speaker 2:No, but the first thing you know about that guy right away is that he is pathetically weak. He's a pathetically weak man and there's nothing attractive in business about having a pathetically weak man at the end of the deal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'm with you on that. I do agree that that is so important and people get away from it. You know, I grew up in a trailer.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to be crying about it because I do you know. I know where I came from. You said something about growing up in Chicago. I grew up in a trailer court. It because I do you know. I know where I came from. You said something about growing up in Chicago. I grew up in a trailer court until I was 18, you know. So I was called trailer trash before. That was cool. So you know I get it. You know what?
Speaker 2:That probably gave you some thick skin. I don't know if you can tell. Can you see this?
Speaker 2:This right here, is called thick skin. I got about skin. I tell people this all the time. I I got a 13 year old girl that babysits my dogs and walks them periodically and I tell her all the time. I said you know she was having a tough time at school. I said listen, you know what? I don't want you to shave your head, but you got to you see this right here. She's like yeah, because it's called thick skin. Whenever people say something to you, they did not make you so they cannot break you. They will not be a part of your success because you are not inviting them to come along for the ride. They are just going to be the 40% that you don't give one fucking second of your life to.
Speaker 2:When I taught her that granted her dad probably wants me to not use the swear word around her that much she literally has grown in the last year and now she's stronger, she's more assertive, she's more confident and she actually doesn't give a fuck about anybody anymore. That's going to attack her because they did not make her and they will not break her by the way shout out to Malia, the greatest dog sitter in the world.
Speaker 1:Speaking of dogs, that was my next question. You've said dogs are angels God sends to watch over us. I love that because I am passionately in love with my dogs. Where did that belief come from and how does it tie into your mission today?
Speaker 2:So I actually do believe that you don't find a dog. They find you, that God sends them to you in the form of angels. And at my lowest times in my life, when I was looking at prison, my dog was there for me. Eight years ago I had a stroke in my sleep and I lost this left eye and this left ear. That time God sent me a dog Jesse. He's in the other room, he's the big guy, and he sent him into my life to be there with me and he got me out there and he got me active, he got me walking around, he got me, you know, he kept me company when things were, you know, toughest.
Speaker 2:And I've come to the reality that I've learned that we don't find a dog. And, by the way, if anyone's watching this, go to a shelter. Let one of the dogs adopt you. You don't adopt them. Let one of the dogs adopt you. They will talk to you. It will tell you who they're there to pick you out from. They will be the angel in your life. God sends you a dog, but you think it's a dog. In reality it's an angel and they watch over you as you watch over them, and I've learned that and I've seen that over and over again.
Speaker 1:You know, I just got a new dog and my husband surprised me. I didn't know she was coming and he didn't know that. The liver transplant when is she when?
Speaker 2:is she? I hear all about all this dog. She's three months old. I bet you could grab her. There's a dog, cameo. What's his name?
Speaker 1:Her name is Mercy. We named her after Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh because they help my husband so much, so we named her after the hospital, mercy.
Speaker 2:You know what she's trying to do right now, right what? She's literally trying to give you a kiss. She literally wants to kiss you.
Speaker 1:I love kissing her.
Speaker 2:I kiss her a thousand times a day.
Speaker 1:She literally wants to kiss you. She's like come on, she has alligator teeth. She has what? She's a part alligator. I say she's a dashigator, she's part alligator, but she's crazy.
Speaker 2:All right, settle down. Listen, that is an angel sent from God to love you.
Speaker 1:I know, because you know why, because I needed her so much right now, because I was going through all of this too. You know my husband's going through it, but so am I.
Speaker 2:You may find this crazy, but she understands you. You can talk to her. She will listen to you.
Speaker 1:You see that nice guy right there. He says you're an angel, Mercy.
Speaker 2:You're an angel. Okay, you're not going to believe this. Hey, theo, come here, come here, come here. All right, I can prove that they are angels sent from God.
Speaker 1:Oh, every time you write, every time I get a dog, it's always for this really big reason, so I love them too. I'm like you. I think about her so much and I have another one, but he's upstairs barking, so the last thing I want to ask you about is your book Faith Matters, and I'm actually working on a book with a pastor right now that we're doing called Faith and Grow Rich, and it's about oh, I love that, I love that.
Speaker 1:I love it so much I know, and so we're working on it. We've kind of taken the Napoleon Hill principles and we're putting it into faith, which I've always wanted to do.
Speaker 2:It's the book of all time. Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich. Literally the best book of all time.
Speaker 1:I agree, it's amazing and you know, the fact is that whenever the pastor and I came together, he had already had his part written, so I was just adding some parables to it and then creating it. So, yes, I'm excited about that. But I want to know, about Faith Matters, why you wrote it and what's one truth you want people to take away from that book.
Speaker 2:I wrote it because I started realizing I have to leave something behind. I have to literally give people something that will change their lives, and there's nothing that will change your life more than faith when you start embracing that faith matters to your life. See, some people they try to talk about faith and they try to make it seem like it matters to them to talk about faith because they want others to follow. It's not a matter of getting others to follow your faith. It's about mattering, making faith matter to you that your faith has to literally change your life. And once you start understanding that faith matters to your life, you will start embracing your faith. Whatever your faith is and my faith is Christianity. Some people have Judaism as their faith. Some people have Judaism as their faith, some people have Islam as their faith at the end of the day, faith matters and it literally makes a difference. It changes your life. Mercy, mercy, mercy. She's wild.
Speaker 1:She's three months right yeah, she's three months, so I paid. I went to AI the other day and I said create an alligator dash, how mix. It's like a chover one which is our teeth, like. She just don't stop fighting. Ai the other day and I said create an alligator dash, how mixed, so I can show everyone what she's like. She just don't stop fighting, but I love her so she sleeps. She's the most amazing little snuggle bug.
Speaker 1:But thank you so much for this. I'm going to. I have this.
Speaker 1:I want to say this because you don't just show up, you literally shake up the room, and I think that is amazing. You're also proof that faith and fire can live in the same sentence, that you can be bold, you can be raw and you can still be deeply driven by purpose. So if you're sitting on an idea or a vision or a comeback, today was your wake-up call for sure. So for everyone out there, this is your permission to go all in to win this day, to make today count. And, chris, I am honored that I got to know you for this 40 minutes and I'm so glad that God brought us together, because I feel like there's so many things you say that are exactly who I am, and I love that. We shared that. So if you could like, subscribe and share this with someone who needs it. I always say, if we could just help one person with this podcast, then we're a success, but my game is over. I'm gonna help millions, so let's do that, chris, and thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Speaker 2:I loved it and I always try to lead people with something that will ultimately change their life, and I'll leave everyone with this. The devil sits on this shoulder every day and tells you all the things you can't do. God sits on this shoulder every day and tells you that he has faith in you, that he believes that you are going to do great things, that you are made to be great and that greatness is your destiny. And if you're worried or scared or you're just having a challenge in your life or a struggle in your life, know that faith matters and that God made you to be great and that greatness was always going to be your destiny, and that if you listen to the outside world, they will tell you all the things you can't do, but they did not make you and they cannot break you.
Speaker 1:Thank you Amazing.
