500 | Special 500th Episode

[00:00:00] Chris: Today we're celebrating 500 episodes of this show, helping people get unstuck, pursue their purpose, and stay on target in life and business. We are gonna talk more about this coming up next.

[00:00:24] Chris: Welcome to the Crystal Urdo Show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

[00:00:36] Chris: Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. We are. We're here in the studio. I'm joined by the fabulous Aaron West and Joel Fortner. Welcome guys to the show.

[00:00:48] Joel: 500th episode 500.

[00:00:51] Aaron: I'm so glad to be here.

[00:00:52] Chris: God, this is just, this is crazy to me. To think that we talk a lot, we talk a lot , we, we [00:01:00] say a lot of things and people listen.

[00:01:01] Chris: For some reason it's keep showing us part. Uh, or we have brand new people every single time. That was that. You know, that would be funny too. Uh, guys, we're celebrating nine years of the K Crystal K Show of Change of Transformation, and I've gotta tell you that I am crazy excited to be doing this episode.

[00:01:22] Chris: Hmm. This means a ton to me. Obviously this is the second show, um, that I've done. A lot of people know the very first show, so it's been a lot of years doing this and the things that we have heard and well, before I get into that stuff, let me just ask you guys. What are your experiences or what are your thoughts when it comes to the show?

[00:01:44] Aaron: One of the earliest memories I have of the show actually goes back to really early on and, uh, this actually comes back from our days, uh, previously at Dave Ramsey. And, uh, we were talking about shining ice and, uh, the [00:02:00] experience of having team members who have shining eyes and, uh, you being able to take that story, turn it into an amazing podcast and blog, um, but then also just the, the realization of.

[00:02:14] Aaron: What is it I'm looking for my team members? What is it that I need them to show me that shows that they care about what we're doing? And for me, that was such a sh uh, an eye-opening moment, no pun intended, . Uh, maybe there is, pun intended. Maybe pun. They were shiny. Shiny, shiny. Because for me, it helped me to see a lot about myself, of going, gosh, I'm not just a doer of going and doing a bunch of stuff, but I truly care about what we're going after, what we're doing, why this all matters.

[00:02:43] Aaron: And that really hit me early on, uh, in my, in my experience with you and working with you. Uh, and so. That was one of the things that has stood out to me for years. Um, and I still think back to that. I, I actually, in fact, there's a picture, if you can find it on the internet. I would love [00:03:00] this because there's a picture, there's a challenge on the table.

[00:03:02] Aaron: Yes. There's a challenge on the table. There's a picture, uh, that used to be somewhere of me eating a large piece of broccoli and out of a soup, out of a broccoli and cheese soup. That is massive. And Chris took this picture and was part of this blog and podcast. Um, it is, as far as I know, no longer on the internet.

[00:03:20] Aaron: I cannot find it anywhere. And I was looking for it just the other week because I was telling someone this story about shining eyes and wanted to show

[00:03:28] Chris: them. So I bet you I can find that picture in 10 minutes. I,

[00:03:32] Aaron: it wouldn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me. I think I can, but that's one of the things for me that just stood out at just helping me realize my role as a team member and taking it beyond just doing a j o b, uh, really going to make things matter.

[00:03:44] Chris: And so, uh, it is, so you're gonna know as soon as I start to say this, as you are sharing that, where do you think I go? Do you, where do you think I I go in my head there's a million places, . Okay. Okay. Maybe you're not gonna know . [00:04:00] I go back to your spousal interview. Oh, okay. And where were we? Charleston, south Charles Carolina.

[00:04:06] Chris: We're Charleston, South Carolina. That's right. And when you ca gosh, what year was that? That was

[00:04:09] Aaron: 2000 and it was the, the fall of 2008.

[00:04:12] Chris: 2008. And we went into the venue. We had a big old arena there in Charleston, South Carolina. We had done our spousal interview that morning. Uh, I got to hold your brand new baby for a while, which we always say she got you hired and she's now almost 15.

[00:04:28] Chris: I know. Which is crazy. And we went into that venue and I remember just your eyes, just when you saw everything and how in love and you started. This is so funny because at that point I was so far removed. You know, I had a team of people that were doing all this stuff. We're in these big venues and, ah, I don't even know the, you know, when I started off, we were using a laptop.

[00:04:49] Chris: And you start walking around naming things and just, oh my gosh, you guys are using that over there. And I'm like, ah-huh. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well of course we use that. And I'm like, I don't even know what the crap you just said. So it's so [00:05:00] amazing. I love that. That's the, the episode that, that you remember, because that's the experience of.

[00:05:06] Chris: Getting to know Aaron West that I remember so much. Joe

[00:05:09] Joel: Forner. So I remember when this, this show launched. So I'm, I was still in dc Uh, Mary Beth and I were still in DC still working for the Air Force, and, uh, you know, you and Melissa, um, got this podcast going and recording it into some device of something very small or like whatever it was you guys were using.

[00:05:27] Joel: That worked pretty well at the time. And I remember when the show started, um, and I would listen to the show and at that point, of course I'm working and I'm selling everything that we do as a, as a side gig. And, uh, with the goal of coming full-time. And that materialized in 14. Well, I remember I would always listen to the show on the bus to the Pentagon and on the way home from the Pentagon.

[00:05:47] Joel: And one of the, my most, uh, vivid memories. Was when you released the what you have in common with wine and understanding your root system podcast. I was on the bus [00:06:00] so excited of being like, oh my gosh. It's like Chris just stumbled onto something that is incredibly exciting and powerful and look at where we are today.

[00:06:12] Joel: Like look at how prominent root system has become, um, how much more we continue to teach it, how life changing, the whole framework and analogy of root system has become for people understanding why they are the way that they are and being able to get unstuck from things that hold them back. And I remember just the emotion that I.

[00:06:33] Joel: I came off the bus and I sent you a text and it was like, this

[00:06:36] Chris: episode today was amazing. And I

[00:06:39] Joel: remember it was so I can, I can picture it all in my mind right now.

[00:06:43] Chris: Gosh. It's so funny that, yeah, the root system has become obviously the basis for next level life and what we do in next level life. And it was something that, um, God had revealed through a lot of processes and just in a way of helping people to understand their [00:07:00] life so much better.

[00:07:01] Chris: And it was so funny, it happened during a next level life. I was literally in an event and trying to explain something to somebody about how their life is and they just weren't getting it. They weren't getting it. And I felt like, I heard God say, tell him how the life is like wine. And I went, oh crud. I'm like, if that's you, God, this is gonna be amazing.

[00:07:19] Chris: If it's not you, this might suck like crazy. And so I just turned around and said, let me explain this. And I went through this whole process and they go, oh yeah, that totally makes sense. and it became such an important piece and such an impactful piece for what we do. And we've been teaching that, you know, ever since.

[00:07:35] Chris: Uh, and so yeah, such a, such a great episode. I, man, that has to be one of our top listen two episodes o since

[00:07:41] Joel: I'm sure it is. Um, yeah. And that was in the fall of 13, I believe is when those originally released.

[00:07:49] Aaron: And that one comes back around a lot. We hear a lot of people who ask for that one a lot. And so, yeah, I would agree.

[00:07:53] Aaron: It's probably one of the top episodes of all time.

[00:07:55] Chris: Oh geez. That's early, early, early on. That's so powerful. Well, folks, [00:08:00] uh, we've had a lot of changes. Uh, we've been through a lot, uh, as a company. We have had some amazing blessings from God. Uh, we've been able to help. So many of you, and I will tell. . The thing that keeps me going, um, is being able to hear from you guys and hear how this impacts you.

[00:08:22] Chris: I will never forget the very first time I heard somebody sent in, I, I think it was in a survey or something. I dunno if it was in a survey or it was an email or something like that. Somebody sent in and said, I have literally created a successful business by listening to your show. And I thought, oh, that's sweet, but surely not.

[00:08:40] Chris: But you know, that's just somebody who's being very nice and all that. Over the years we've heard that so many times, people we've never even met before that are like, dude, I started listening to the show, decided to create this business. I'm literally running a successful business by listening to the stuff that you teach.[00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Chris: And we've been teaching this stuff for so long, and those are the pieces. It's great when we get to see the people as I look out the studio window at, at a place where, you know, so many businesses sit down for strap plan. And I think of how impactful it is to have people here in person and being able to go through things with them at the table, or even what we say sometimes next level lifeing them at the table, which is always fun and exciting, uh, and incredibly powerful.

[00:09:27] Chris: Uh, it's amazing to have people in person. It is, I don't know, it, it's what drives me to hear people who I've never even met. Listen to the things that we talk about, the episodes that we do, the discussions that we have, the information that we put out there for free. Um, and they're able to go out there and make successful businesses.

[00:09:48] Chris: They're able to change relationships, they're able to change their lives. So for me, this is one of those, God, it's exciting and at the same time, it's a little emotional. It's a little emotional to be at 500 [00:10:00] episodes and think of how far we've come. And another thing is, is that we've got information that you guys have shared.

[00:10:06] Chris: So, uh, we look forward to going through that. Uh, many folks have participated in our 500th episode giveaway, which ended just a few days ago. And I wanna share some of the information that you provided to us about you. So before we get into these numbers, I want to ask you guys, to guess. So we have, uh, some information.

[00:10:28] Chris: I want you to guess whether people listen more to the life side or the business side.

[00:10:31] Joel: This so my, so see that we were talking earlier, it's like we have assumptions. Yes. And we like are all personally drawn to different things. But I'm gonna lean probably a little bit more toward, um, the life side even than the business side just because of people's feedback over the years.

[00:10:49] Aaron: See that's interesting because I, as a, obviously doing a lot of the coaching that I do, I tend to lean that a lot of our stuff that our listeners really look for, cuz you're just talking about this. I've started a [00:11:00] business using the free stuff that we've talked about in these podcasts over the years. I would tend to lean as great as the life side is I would lean toward the business side

[00:11:07] Chris: on this.

[00:11:07] Chris: So if I didn't have the numbers, I would actually, this is so funny. This sounds so lame. Sounds like this is a total setup, , but this is, I'm being honest, I would struggle in picking one. . And because I know of, same as you just said, all of our business clients that are like, oh my gosh, this is what I'm listening to.

[00:11:26] Chris: I'm listening to, I hear from them when they show up here, but then we see so much of the effect of the lifestyle as well. So I probably would've had a tough time saying, yeah, I even just sitting here thinking, what would I have actually said? Mm-hmm. , I don't know if I would've had an answer. I think inside of me assumption would've been business, but I probably would've said life.

[00:11:48] Chris: Mm-hmm. I don't know. I don't know. Well, what is it? Here's what it is. Yeah. Reveal it to it. So here's the funny thing. 75% of the people surveyed say they listened to both. Wow. [00:12:00] Which means that they listen to all episodes, and I

[00:12:02] Joel: absolutely love

[00:12:03] Chris: that. Yeah. That to me is just great. I mean, and here's what's included in that.

[00:12:10] Chris: The people that have shared with us, they're kid. Ugh. Gosh. Okay. Oh yeah. Here we go. And try not to, try not to get too emotional here on the episode. Uh, but welcome to Crystal K's Life . Um, the people that talk about their kids. Mm-hmm. that listen in the car. You know, I'm so glad for the adults that are listening to this show, but man, if you want to touch my heart, help me to know that your kids are getting their lives changed before they get out there and have to learn all the things that we had to learn, right?

[00:12:40] Chris: That they're getting this information ahead of time. So 75% say that they listen to both. 20% say they only listen to the life side episodes. You know, some of those examples you just gave. Wow. You know, like the root system, um, uh, how your life was like wine. Um,

[00:12:58] Joel: the series [00:13:00] we just put out on, on lies, victims

[00:13:02] Chris: Lies series, all those kinds of things.

[00:13:05] Chris: Uh, we have a lot of powerful, powerful. , um, on the life side. And it's just so, it's so amazing. So 20% say that they only listen to the life side. 5% say they only listen to the business side. Hmm. So out of a hundred percent, 75% of you listen to both sides. All of it. 20%. Only the life side and 5% only the business side.

[00:13:28] Chris: So I

[00:13:29] Joel: think a, a super cool thing about that too is that is our mission. I mean, our mission is both to help people in life and in business. Um, and that's, most of you all are like, that's what you're seeking. You're looking to grow in both of those areas. The reason we put out this show, first and foremost, is to change lives.

[00:13:48] Joel: It's not to do anything more than that. It is a put out a show that is quality that people want and it's life changing, or it helps leaders lead more successfully, grow a more successful business. [00:14:00] And to me this is feedback and affirmation. Uh, that we're achieving that mission.

[00:14:05] Chris: Yeah. I, I don't know. And, uh, if we have any new stats on this, but our old stats were that the folks that were listening, 40% were business owners, entrepreneurs, 40% were leaders, and 20% were everybody else.

[00:14:21] Chris: Yeah. Team members, you know, family members, whatever. Um, and so it, it is interesting to see that we have, like, if we take those numbers, 80% are in leadership. Mm-hmm. of some sort. And yet 75% of our listeners listen to both sides. Yeah. What does that say? How much of the light, what you know, it's the reason that if somebody's gonna come through strap, plan the energy of the company, the ceo, the owner, whoever it is, has to come through next level life first, because you bring your life to work every single day.

[00:14:54] Chris: So much of what you do has your life side. Uh, imposed [00:15:00] on it, brought into it, however you wanna look at it. So I think that's just interesting to see. Uh, and I also want to give a great shout out to Brian, Alex, who is in Sicily right now, who has done such a phenomenal job. Of pulling information together consistently, um, helping to take this content that we create, drive it together, and help us to make some phenomenal shows.

[00:15:24] Chris: So when we come back, we'll talk about what you, the listeners said were the top five most impactful topics that we've covered in the recent years, the top five most requested themes that you want to hear about next year, as well as why those things are so vitally important to finding the life and business that you really want.

[00:15:50] Chris: Hey folks. Well, I am so excited to announce that we are finally there. Registration is open now for the next level leadership live event of 2023. [00:16:00] Let me tell you what's not gonna be around very long. Your chance to take $500 off every ticket that you buy. That's right. $500 discount per ticket is going to expire very soon.

[00:16:15] Chris: Now, this event is your best chance to get the tools you need to take your leadership to the next level. So leaders do yourself a favor and head on over to christopher kur.com/events. Just type in christopher kur.com/events before this special offer goes away. I can't wait to see you and your team at our next live event.

[00:16:39] Chris: All right, we are back. And before we go into the top five most important topics, I wanted to mention what some of you have commented about this past year's. So here are some of what you guys have said. Serena says, I love hearing about next level life content. Now what is the next level? Life

[00:16:58] Joel: content. Oh my god.

[00:16:59] Joel: Yeah. [00:17:00] It's, it's, it's all the life side. It is people pleasing, it's control struggles, it's self-protection. It's the four-part series on lies we just put out it's root system. Um, it's understanding your decision making. It's understanding how you hold yourself back. It's your emotional health. It's the hundreds of episodes we've done that are pointing people toward greater life change.

[00:17:23] Joel: And what's amazing is how many of you all have listened to these shows and then deciding, you know what, I need to come through next civil life and now go super deep on all of this. And cuz you know, it's like I'm gonna, so I'm gonna do a little spoiler alert here. We're gonna really hit this later on.

[00:17:40] Joel: But, you know, 500 is a theme right now for us coming up. This is our 500th episode. Uh, on the show, but we are just about to hit 500 one-on-one next level life events, 500 one-on-one events. We're gonna celebrate that coming up in January.

[00:17:58] Chris: That isn't, again, uh, [00:18:00] such a milestone. Such an incredible milestone.

[00:18:02] Chris: And as we roll into January, we hit our 10th year as a company, uh, as a company. Just, ugh, it's just so crazy. Lost to celebrate . This is gonna be the craziest show. If all I keep doing is just going, isn't that amazing? That's so. Oh, I love it. But guys, this is, this is how passionate we are about this. Mm-hmm.

[00:18:20] Chris: and how much we love this. So Maria says, I am not defined by my job or by my role. Business is what I do, not who I am. I love that. That's, you know, obviously the start of our show is so important to understand that your identity isn't just in what you do. Mm-hmm. . Um, there, it's just an aspect of that.

[00:18:39] Aaron: Yeah.

[00:18:39] Aaron: And this is proof, going back to the stat you just shared a few moments ago, because this is somebody who's talking about job and business, but we're talking about life side of this because this is all about your worth. This is all about, you know, uh, who God created you to be. And understanding that about yourself, that, look what I go and do in my job is not where I get my [00:19:00] worth.

[00:19:00] Aaron: Yeah. And understanding that those tasks, those things that I do, that I claim as this is my j o b is not where my value. In this world comes from. Yeah. And so understanding that is just a huge aspect of this whole thing that just combines the business and life side right here beautifully

[00:19:17] Chris: together. Yep. I love it.

[00:19:18] Chris: I love it. Steve said, content from the last few months has been especially helpful. I think you hit a bunch of those. Joel, uh, we, you know, the lines, the truths, the villains, the victims, all that kind of fun stuff that's. Fantastic. Mary said, appreciated how growing your employees can lead to growing your bottom line.

[00:19:38] Aaron: Hmm. Yeah. So working on your team is such a great thing. Uh, you know, we talk about this a lot in our mastermind program and our key leader program, uh, just a few weeks ago. As a matter of fact, we had our first, uh, key leader program live event, and we did a virtual event, and Joel and Justin and I, and, and our team and just had a blast with our key leaders.

[00:19:59] Aaron: But one of the things that we [00:20:00] talked about was leading your team to success and spending time on building your team and making them successful is what leads us as leaders and as business owners to being

[00:20:10] Chris: successful. I think it, well, I don't wanna get too lost on going into TE Teacher gotta Teach right , so I go right into the teaching mode.

[00:20:17] Chris: I think it's so important. People realize that you don't need to separate these aspects from the business side. You know, if you, if you think that people are just there to do the job and you don't recognize that if you pour into them, I love it. Maxwell said this probably, I don't know, decades ago, uh, John Maxwell said, uh, would you rather spend money on growing your team members and they leave with the money you spent or don't spend money on, and they stay?

[00:20:45] Chris: That has been with me for decades, and that's something that I continue to teach people as well to understand. It is vital to grow your team members, right? I mean, we have done it Joel, since the very beginning when you came on board. [00:21:00] You know, we've had coaches, we've put people in, we brought in, uh, specialists to help our team members grow in areas whenever we needed it.

[00:21:09] Chris: We are coaches, we do this kind of stuff. We, we invest in that heavily because we do realize that the more we grow our team members, the more it grows our bottom line. So I, I'm gonna try not to teach through everything today, guys. Uh, but, uh, it's just, it's great to hear people saying that they understand how much that's an impact.

[00:21:26] Chris: And Tamara says, Hey, Tamara, good to hear from you. Says it's been important to me to learn how true value and worth come from Christ. Yeah. This

[00:21:34] Joel: is just a, a great one of of five comments. This is. What a great one, um, to kind of put in the fifth slot here because it's like, I mean, as believers and I, I can only assume that a lot of you all who listen, uh, are people of faith, um, through a podcast show.

[00:21:52] Joel: Yeah. That people are coming to these kinds of realizations. Um, I look at this and I'm like, this isn't us guys. This isn't [00:22:00] this team. This is God's pursuit. And he will reach people in whatever way, uh, that he needs to.

[00:22:06] Chris: I, I, yeah. And, and here's the thing I also love is how many people that are not believers that listen.

[00:22:13] Chris: We've had a lot of people, uh, that follow and a lot of those have become believers, praise God, hallelujah. And a lot of folks are still out there, you know, wondering and struggling through. Um, and some aren't even feel like they're not struggling, but they just love to listen to the content. But it always is a powerful thing when we can help people get closer to their creators.

[00:22:33] Chris: So, okay, folks, we've arrived at what you've said. Were your favorite episodes from the last few years, your favorite picks, so the top five most impactful topics. Any ideas of what you think the number one's gonna be? Probably the cooking episodes. Definitely . Definitely,

[00:22:51] Joel: yeah. Yeah. In the accompanying videos, right?

[00:22:54] Joel: Yeah. Yeah, that's what I think. Aaron, what do you

[00:22:55] Aaron: think? I, yeah, exactly. I was gonna go to food as well, but you beat

[00:22:58] Chris: me to it, . [00:23:00] But what we do need to actually do some of those that would be fun to do anyways. Yeah. The first one, the top most impactful topic is identifying the lies. Mm. Why do we think

[00:23:11] Joel: that is?

[00:23:11] Joel: I, you know, my, my speculation is that it really connects with people and really being able to see their thinking, because it's not this little thing of like, oh yeah, I have these lies. I tell myself, yada, yada, yada. Because

[00:23:25] Chris: most people don't even recognize that they lie to themselves. Not

[00:23:27] Joel: at all. Or, I mean, our, our thinking and our emotions are so entangled.

[00:23:32] Joel: So when we, when people can get clarity on. Oh my gosh. That's how I think it's incredibly eye-opening and illuminating, and I think people love it and I think they want more of it. Yeah.

[00:23:43] Chris: Is there, yeah, I'm trying to think through, um, lies that we've all believed. You know, I'm not good enough, you know, I'm never gonna amount to, uh, what so-and-so thinks I should, uh, I need to be as, um, successful [00:24:00] as this other, per, you know, comparing myself to other people.

[00:24:02] Chris: Uh, you know, whatever it is I need to

[00:24:04] Joel: defend myself. I need to protect myself. Hmm. You know,

[00:24:07] Chris: there is a, an immense amount of lies. We, we usually give people, I don't know, a list of like 60 or something like that and say, Hey, just circle some of these and let us know some of the things that you struggle with or, you know, some of the negative self-talk that's in your head.

[00:24:21] Chris: When people actually see that they're lying to themselves and they can recognize, I mean, we've all done it. We've all we, we've all been through this, we've all experienced this. We've learned how to battle the lies with the truths. So to us, this is second nature, right? I mean, it's something for, I tell people, you know, usually a lie, I can destroy that thing in 30 seconds.

[00:24:40] Chris: A long lie takes five minutes, right? Uh, it's just catching the lie, identifying it, and then going, oh, crap. Knock that off. You know, here's the truth. That is a lie. Here's truth, truth, truth. And, but a lot of folks don't ever understand that. And so that I am, I am. Not surprised. And I am actually very [00:25:00] glad that that's Yeah, me too.

[00:25:01] Chris: The top most impactful one. Number two is beating the leadership crazy cycle. And I absolutely love this because this isn't an easy topic. No, this is a tough

[00:25:10] one.

[00:25:10] Aaron: So yeah, so the leadership crazy cycle, for those that don't know, this is really that place where you as a leader, find yourself so task saturated, so caught up in all the things that you've gotta do that you don't actually spend time leading.

[00:25:25] Aaron: Yeah. And the the crazy thing about this, and I've, I've worked with a number of leaders, I've, uh, uh, coached with a number of leaders and I ask them this question, it's so funny. I go, so how many of us, when we get to the end of our, our journey, our business, you know, we retire and that kind of stuff, if we do retire, you know, feel like, you know what?

[00:25:44] Aaron: I just spent too much time leading and not enough time on tasks. , no one ever says that. They're always like, I just spent too much time doing stuff and not leading my team. And so this is that whole thing of that leadership crazy cycle of finding yourself caught in this doing [00:26:00] stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff that may or may not actually have an impact on the business instead of going back to what I talked about earlier, setting your team up for success and guiding them and leading them and helping them achieve great things.

[00:26:13] Chris: Yeah. I, I think, I don't think I know this is, you know, we did a two-parter on this in, in the Mastermind, um, membership portal. We've got two lessons that we teach on this because the very first one is killing the leadership crazy cycle, which is so powerful of teaching people to get the junk out of what they're, what they're doing on a daily basis that they should not be doing.

[00:26:34] Chris: So if we just summarized it, it's getting all those things off of your plate that you shouldn't do, especially at your salary. Mm-hmm. , if you take a look at how, how much you pay you or you're paid as a leader to do. What you do, and then you look at all the things you're doing, you're like, that should be on somebody else.

[00:26:51] Chris: That should be, I should focus on, these are the important things that people are paying me for. And here's the crazy thing. You guys are leaders in this business. I don't pay you to do [00:27:00] tasks. I pay you to lead people incredibly well so that they could go do the tasks that they need to do and be very successful at what they're doing.

[00:27:07] Chris: And there's people that are built for leading. There's people that are built for doing tasks, right? It, the, the key is we get stuck in this process of thinking, I've got to do all these tasks. Well, what did we discover? Uh, we discovered as soon as we started helping people get out of the leadership crazy cycle, they would suck themselves back in because they didn't know how to lead and they were afraid.

[00:27:28] Chris: And so for everybody listening, that's such a powerful episode because you've gotta get to a place where you go, wait a. . I think maybe I'm stuck in a lot of this because I don't know what to do if I was out of it, which we help you with that as well, which was became a, a powerful second lesson to that.

[00:27:43] Chris: So I'm so glad to hear that. That was the number two, number three, and I've gotta say, I've heard a lot from folks on this lately of just, it's almost like this is almost like a. Lesson for them of just, oh, praise God. [00:28:00] I have struggled with this for the longest time. And Aaron, I want you to talk about this because this is an area that you struggled with back in the day, uh, having tough conversations.

[00:28:09] Chris: Yep.

[00:28:09] Aaron: So talk about that. We actually had an episode, uh, last year that Chris, you and I did on this prior to the, uh, uh, the next level leadership live event. But, uh, tough conversations are one of those things that I hated. I hate conflict. Uh, I avoided it. I didn't want to have a tough conversation, whether it was with a team member, whether it was with a leader.

[00:28:29] Aaron: I was just like, you know what? We'll just sweeping under the rug and things will get better. And surely it'll go away. Surely it'll go away. And what ends up happening is I now have this mountain of dust under this rug in front of me, cuz I've swept so much stuff under there. Um, but the, the reality of what you talked about there, Chris, is so important.

[00:28:44] Aaron: And when you realize how to have a good, tough conversation, And how to walk through and set yourself up and the other person up for success in the conversation just makes it so much easier to have to have those conversations. I don't [00:29:00] feel the pressure and the stress of, oh no, what if they do this or this fear of, well, what if they don't like me after I'm done having this conversation?

[00:29:09] Aaron: Which is, that was my big fear. I'm a high eye, high ass personality. I want people to like me, you know? And so I hated having those conversations because I always concerned myself of what if they don't like me after this? And the reality of it is I have to come back to and go, what's the most important thing for this person and for myself?

[00:29:27] Aaron: Am I helping them or am I hurting them by not having this conversation? And that was one of the big eye-opening things for me is recogniz. Gosh, this is to help both of us be better individuals. And so now not only do I ha am I a lot more comfortable having tough conversations, I'm also a lot more comfortable receiving tough

[00:29:44] Chris: conversations.

[00:29:45] Chris: That was literally just going through my mind as I think of the early days of where you and I would have conversations and you would receive it as a tough conversation. And I don't think anything, I don't think it's a tough conversation. I just think, Hey, we're just talked through something. But you received it that [00:30:00] way and years later you shared with me, man, there were times that it was difficult.

[00:30:05] Chris: And I'm like, you're kidding. Because for me, it wasn't a, I'm a HIAs, right? Uh, it wasn't a tough conversation, but it was you getting the right tools and the right understanding, the right perspective. that helped you to go, wait a second, this isn't that tough. Which allowed you then to move on to wait a second, I have to do this with other people.

[00:30:25] Chris: I have to be able to have these conversations. And you've been phenomenal at it. Uh, so much so you taught on that at last year's Next level leadership live event. Uh, so just again, another, I, I've heard a lot of people talk about this over the last, i, I don't know how long, how long ago we put that episode out, but I feel like I've heard it a lot lately where people are just like, man, that was super, super helpful.

[00:30:45] Chris: Uh, number four is how to be resilient in adversity. Yeah. This

[00:30:49] Joel: is a fun one. This I would not have expected to see. I would not have expect, expected that that's like I can get. As soon as I see it, I'm like, okay, I can see how what we teach comes across this way of how to be [00:31:00] resilient because we are, we're trying to build people up and people are trying to get armored up and equipped and healthy boundaries.

[00:31:06] Joel: And how do I have these tough conversations and how do I deal with conflict at work or at home? So I totally can see. Um, how this came through as a major

[00:31:15] Chris: topic. Yeah, I, I thought it would be a really great topic. I am shocked to see that as number four. I love it. I think that's fantastic. Number five, most impactful topic is how to not take things personally.

[00:31:29] Chris: It's so excellent. Yeah.

[00:31:30] Aaron: It's so good. I, it, it's funny because I sit there and I think about how many times do I, in my own life, even to this day, do I find myself taking things personally and I have to kind of, like we were talking about earlier, Chris, I wanted to hit on this cuz you mentioned this earlier, the lies piece that this comes out in this cuz that's what a lot of times what this is, is when you take things personally, it's a lie that you're telling yourself.

[00:31:52] Aaron: Yeah. Through this, and I wanted to make this clear. We, we've been going through this, we've learned tools on how to deal with. But here's the reality. We [00:32:00] still have lives that come into our, our minds. Mm-hmm. , you know, we still have to battle through that. Yeah. It doesn't go away. Uh, and I think that's the reality for, for a lot of our people, that a lot of our listeners, is we're giving them the tools to not only recognize it, but then be able to go.

[00:32:14] Aaron: I don't have to take this personally. Yeah. I don't have to receive somebody who's out of control and projecting something on me. I don't have to receive it

[00:32:22] Chris: that way. Yeah. I think that's so important for people to hear is that it's not that I, I do feel like a lot of the lies diminished dramatically.

[00:32:30] Chris: Right. A lot of things that are just, you just know things nowadays that that light doesn't creep up, but the lies still show up. It's just when you use the tools, you get through it so fast. Yep. I mean, it is so rapid in the middle of a conversation if something's happening or conflict is happening, and you start to lie to yourself and you're quick to go, hold on a second, what's truth?

[00:32:50] Chris: What is, why is this happening? Why am I saying this? Boom, boom, boom. Knock it out. As opposed to then going on to negative self-talk for the next 2, 3, 4 hours and coming up with all the things you should have [00:33:00] said and feeling horrible about yourself. So I think that's, that's super powerful, uh, to share. Uh, interesting note.

[00:33:07] Chris: Listener's favorite episode format is the three Rules. That's super cool. Wow. That is super cool. I we, because we've,

[00:33:14] Joel: yeah. We've experimented a lot this year. Yeah. With these risk and reward three rules, and this is another shout out to Brian. Yeah, yeah. These are his brainchild. Yeah. That's he's, Hey guys, let's try this out and see how it goes, which is great.

[00:33:26] Joel: See what you all really wanted to, what you all

[00:33:29] Chris: would latch onto, because a lot of the stuff we love to do is the non-planned show. I, that's some of my favorite stuff where it's like, let me hit you with this role because it, you know, it, it, it allows us to really. Show people what it's like to coach in the moment.

[00:33:46] Chris: To experience mm-hmm. , you know, to grow, to be taught. And when Brian came up with those three rules, you know, he's looking for you and I, the, the great idea. Let's see if I can get you guys to disagree on something in which we never did. Everything was, you know, we agreed on [00:34:00] everything in that process. Uh, but it was a great opportunity to get two different people's perspective, even though we carry a lot of the same perspective.

[00:34:07] Chris: Yeah. You know, this is stuff that we teach. Uh, it would, you know, I, I don't think that's surprising to people that mm-hmm our team is fully behind the things that, you know, that we teach. Uh, but I think it was great to be able for him to throw those out. And there were times. I, I, I don't think I ever read the notes.

[00:34:27] Chris: Yep. There are times that he was like, you probably saw this in the notes. And I'm like, no, I'm not reading the notes. I want you to hit it. I want you to just throw it out there and let's go with it. Yeah. And they were a fantastic topic, so I actually, I love that format. I love everything that we've done lately.

[00:34:41] Chris: It's just been fun. There hasn't been anything. There hasn't been anything that hasn't been fun and enjoyable. All right, we are ready for what listeners are saying that they want to hear more of next year. So when we come back, the top five most requested themes and at the end of this episode, I'll be announcing [00:35:00] the winners of the 500th episode giveaway.

[00:35:03] Chris: Come back right after this.

[00:35:08] Chris: Folks, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, then you know the number one issue when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high quality communication to make sure that you are absolutely winning in every aspect of your life. It all starts with having great communication.

[00:35:31] Chris: The best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style and to understand the personality style of the folks that you're spending the most time with, whether it be at work, whether it be at home. The best way to do that is to go to Crystal k.com/store and get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team today.

[00:35:51] Chris: Get it for your family members. As you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate. Go to [00:36:00] christopher.com/store today.

[00:36:07] Chris: All right, we are back, and here we go folks. We want to dive into what you said you want to hear more of in the year to come. And by the way, we always have the opportunity. We're always looking for more feedback, more information from you. Why? Because this show is not for us. . We, we don't do this for us. We do this for a living, right?

[00:36:27] Chris: We do this so that we can change lives. So, uh, [email protected] is always a way that you can communicate with us, get us information, let us know what you want to hear, let us know what you're thinking out there. So the top five most requested themes that people want to hear in the next year.

[00:36:47] Chris: Interestingly enough, it's so funny because as we ask this question, I'm like, are we gonna get ridiculously different? You know, what are people gonna be like? I want you to teach on how to, you [00:37:00] know, favorite, favorite chili recipe. Yeah. What'd you, how do you emphasize a methylated alkaloid? If anybody Yes.

[00:37:05] Chris: Tell me what movie that was. Uh, you know, something just crazy random and what's the number one thing leading others to

[00:37:13] Joel: Success Check. Got it all over

[00:37:16] Chris: it. . I love it. Yeah. I mean, it's like that, that makes me, I mean there is a, a level of, Ooh, I would love to hit something that's, find out something that we haven't hit that people are are thinking of.

[00:37:27] Chris: But it's great to hear people say, how do I lead other people to success? Which goes back to what we were just talking about with killing the leadership Crazy. Why do so many leaders not get out? And I'll Beau McDonald Bo if you're listening, one of my favorite, favorite coaching calls ever. Uh, Beau called me up and the first thing he said, he goes, I've been leading people for three days and I'm exhausted.

[00:37:53] Chris: And this is a business owner for many years. He goes, why did I not kill the leadership crazy [00:38:00] cycle before this? And I said, man, that's a great question. Why didn't you? And he goes, you know, I'll be honest. He goes, I was afraid of giving up the things that I had. . Um, you know, I didn't know what it was gonna be like and if it was gonna fall apart, if it was gonna, you know, so he had all the fantastic reasons, but it was so great.

[00:38:14] Chris: I think it was three years before he actually, you know, he had learned it, been through it, and then finally when he did it, he was like, this is so much better. It's so much better to be a, be making people successful. So, uh, this is a love of ours is helping folks, because we had to learn this though. This is something I've been learning and teaching for decades because I came out of a lot of bad leaders.

[00:38:38] Chris: I came out of a lot of stuff where I'm like, Man, I, I, I'm not getting anything from you on how I do this well, or how I do this better, how I grow in this thing, so I better go find out this stuff. Right. So I love that. That's number one. Any thoughts on that?

[00:38:51] Aaron: Yeah. So Chris, uh, interestingly enough about this, um, I, I was actually just talking with one of our clients the other day on this exact thing, [00:39:00] uh, and we were actually talking about, Tying root system into leadership and tying in this idea of a business root system that we, as team members have had from learning from our leaders and all that kind of stuff.

[00:39:13] Aaron: One of the things that we talked about was, hey, you know, let's say I'm a 25 year old, uh, team member who, I've been at this company for five years, and now I'm leaving the company to go join another company and be in a leadership role at this other company. What kind of leader am I gonna be? Yeah, well, if I've not invested in myself, I'm gonna be the exact same leader as the one I had at the previous place.

[00:39:32] Aaron: And so that root system piece that ties into that. So the question we have to ask is, what is we as leaders, what are we pouring into the root system of our team members and helping them be successful? So if they do go ahead and leave like John Maxwell's talking about, what kind of success are they going to bring to their team wherever they

[00:39:50] Chris: go?

[00:39:50] Chris: Well, and to think about this, I mean, you guys lead teams here. I, if we don't pour into y'all's growth, , what's gonna happen with [00:40:00] the people under you? , right? So shrivel and die. So let's say, you know, you have a great leader or even a good leader who leaves that you could have made better. Mm-hmm. Well, if they're not as good as they should be or could be, then guess how their people have been led.

[00:40:19] Chris: Not very well, which means that if you're looking from that pool to raise up into that leadership slot, have fun with that. Mm-hmm. Right? And hopefully maybe there's a standout there. Hopefully maybe there's a champion there, but what are you doing now? You're going to the outside and try and find somebody who's great to fill that spot instead, if you pour into your people and help them to become greater, and I love it, the, the root system, uh, aspect of this, then it doesn't stop there because the fruit carries on from the leader into the team, creating better team members.

[00:40:52] Chris: You know, I, I brag on our team all the time. Um, and you two are two of the biggest pieces of this. We have [00:41:00] phenomenal leaders in this team that have done an incredible job. I wish they were all in here, and we can, we can talk about this with all the leaders on the show, but I love how much you guys have been able to lead the team to not just success, but to taking on things and leading the company that our front lines are lifting the company.

[00:41:24] Chris: And that is one of the funnest things, man, I, I just can't stress that enough. It is so fun to be at a place where you don't have to lead and manage all the aspects of the. , you know, I focus on you guys. That's it. I don't lead y'all's teams. I don't lead the people below you guys. I lead you guys and you guys lead them so well that they're lifting the whole company.

[00:41:49] Chris: They're wanting to go after more in better stuff and more impactful stuff, and not, Hey, we want to go become billionaires. We wanna go change lives. Mm-hmm. and the things that the team wants to [00:42:00] do just excites the daylights out of me because it shows their hearts and it shows that they, they love people and they wanna take care of people.

[00:42:07] Chris: So, Ooh. So good. So good. All right. Number two. And not a surprise, I'm glad to see this because sometimes I think we hit this topic. a lot, and sometimes I think I'm like, well, are we hitting this too much? I'm so glad to see the number two most requested topic is more dealing with stress and conflict. Uh, you know, I, it, it, it is funny.

[00:42:33] Chris: You get to a place where you're just like, okay, well what other angles can we hit this? Right? Because surely everybody's good with what we've said. It's good to hear people go, Nope, we want more. What else can you show us? Oh, great. We got, we got, we have tons. There's a lot more we could hit if that's what you guys want to hear.

[00:42:50] Chris: And so I was actually very happy to see that. That's number two.

[00:42:53] Joel: I think it's, uh, I think it's reinforcing, I think at times it's, um, people haven't fully solved those [00:43:00] problems. Um, or they, and they know it. And at times it's really helpful to hear, uh, I think an episode that's like, yep, we're hitting the same thing.

[00:43:08] Joel: It's a different, it's a different angle. New details in what we're talking about, but it meets people where they're at. And I think when we meet people where they're at, I think when we meet, you know, meet, talk to you all when we meet you all where you're at. . Um, I think that's a meaningful thing I think about my own life and of things that, you know, I wanna work on in the business here, for instance, and I'll get another, uh, email of somebody I follow that helps in that area and it, and I've gotten emails on the same topics for a year or two years, and I'm like, you know what?

[00:43:39] Joel: We're still not where we need to be on that area. And I see that email and I'm like, you know what? That inspires me and motivates me to now bear down and focus more on that thing that we've not fully improved or solved yet. And my assumption is maybe, maybe these episodes hit you all in that way.

[00:43:55] Chris: Yeah, definitely.

[00:43:56] Chris: I think so. And, and like you said, I think a big piece [00:44:00] is the, I, I can hear a lot of aspects of something, but until you say a specific word or until you present a specific situation mm-hmm. , sometimes it doesn't hit me. And we see that in next level life all the time. Totally. We can, we can be, we can see something that somebody's struggling with or dealing with and hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer.

[00:44:19] Chris: And they're still not getting it. And it's like, okay. Let me say it this way. Oh, light bulb. And it's like a light bulb moment of, well, now since you said it that way, now it makes sense. It's still the same thing, still the same topic, still the same, you know, stuff, but, so that's really good to see. Number three, high level management skills, and specifically, apparently this is for owners.

[00:44:42] Chris: So here's what I do want to say, folks. I would love even for more details on like, what are you looking at? Because I see that owners is attached to this and I want to know what, what is it that you're looking for? , you know? So again, whether it's dealing with stress and conflict leading [00:45:00] to people to success or high level management skills, what specifically would you love to see?

[00:45:05] Chris: For me, I receive, well, lemme just ask you guys how, how do you receive that? Well, I

[00:45:10] Joel: will tell you not only how I receive it, but I'm literally looking at, at a survey response right now, and one business owner said how to set boundaries in life and business. That's what they wanna know. I bet you're an owner that listens to both sides of the show just by that response right

[00:45:26] Chris: there.

[00:45:26] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. That is not where I would've gone. Like when I see high level management skills, I'm like, okay, people are asking, Hey, how do I be the ceo? You know, Hey, how do I, uh, you know, be an executive level leader? Yeah. And

[00:45:39] Aaron: that's, that's where I went, where you went, Chris. I'm thinking of business owners who started a business on their own.

[00:45:45] Aaron: They've now grown it to 5, 10, 15 people and now they're not as so involved in the day-to-day and they're figuring out, how do I move into this leadership role of how do I lead my team? How do I get my team, like what you were talking about, where [00:46:00] they're taking ownership and running with stuff and creating stuff, and I don't, I don't have to be the one that's guiding every single piece of this.

[00:46:06] Aaron: Yeah.

[00:46:07] Chris: That is, you know, I think it's so funny. We, we talk a lot about that, a lot in strapline. Um, we talk about it with some of the individual coaching calls. Hey, here's, and I know we've done episodes on it in the past, we talked about, you know, position for like a president or, you know, a CEO e o what, what I think is the most important thing for you to be doing, uh, if you're the top energy of the business.

[00:46:31] Chris: And again, the top energy could be the owner. It could be a c e o, it could be the president, it's whoever is the, who is leading the business itself, right? Obviously, I'm the both the owner and the c e o I'm the, the top energy of making things happen. I should not be doing anything that is not focused on the high level growth of the company, right?

[00:46:54] Chris: And so I, I love Stephanie. I hope Stephanie's listening out there. I love being able to [00:47:00] share stories on, on some of this stuff. Stephanie, uh, actually, when we hired Stephanie, . Stephanie, just a great gal came in, uh, she was still in college at the time, and great gal, great personality. It's funny, she would come to me at times and go, Hey, can you tell me where this is?

[00:47:20] Chris: And , and I remember just going, oh gosh, no, I don't, I don't know if you go check with your leader. I have no clue. And you know, my office is the event space. I had an office for so many years. You know, I actually sit out at a table in the event space and that's my office. So it's, it's open to everybody. And so then like a day or two later, she come, Hey, can you help me find such and such?

[00:47:42] Chris: And I'm like, gosh, I don't, I actually don't know. I don't have a clue. I can tell you where I think it is, but I don't have a clue. By the third time she came in, I said, I said, Steph, uh, so here's something I need you to know. I pay people to know those answers. If I know those answers, I'm not gonna [00:48:00] do the things that make you money.

[00:48:01] Chris: Yeah. I'm not gonna get payroll in for you if I have to focus on those things. There are people that are really smart who know that stuff, but I can't be bogged down with that. And she literally looked at me and she goes, well that makes sense. And turned around and walked away. And it was just a great moment of going, you know, it was good for her, who's this young woman, uh, to learn what it means to be in a role.

[00:48:25] Chris: Like my role, Chris shouldn't know this stuff. And it's funny because you guys know things I don't have a clue about. You know, Aaron, there's stuff on the, you know, electronic side that I just don't have a clue how we're doing things anymore, you know? And it's great. I don't need to know. , I need to be focused on the more important things for the business.

[00:48:45] Chris: Joel, uh, you know, recently promoted to president in the company, which is a much deserved role. There's things, and we've worked on that with you for years of always keeping you out of things you shouldn't be doing, keeping you [00:49:00] away from administrative stuff and always getting that passed on. And I think, you know, in the very early days in this building, when we got in here, that was something that I recognized early on, that if you were the, the rate that we were running, that there was the possibility in a year you would be task saturated, stocking a leadership crazy cycle.

[00:49:19] Chris: And we have been. Uh, intentional about keeping that off of you forever. Uh, Aaron recently promoted to VP of leadership development. Same kind of concept of getting all of those things off of you that you shouldn't be focused on. So why am I going through all these different aspects of it? Because there's so many leaders.

[00:49:38] Chris: Those high level management skills they think have to do with a lot of lower level. , um, hard skills that they, they don't, they really shouldn't be. You should be focused on discovering the issues inside of your business that are holding you back. You should be focused on how do you, like, we would always say doing a strap plan.

[00:49:58] Chris: How do you make that strap plan [00:50:00] successful? What is the strategy of the business going forward? How do I make sure that everybody's getting the resources that they need? How do I make sure that everybody is, you know, doing things on time, though I don't have to do the details? How do I make sure we continue to push vision forward and drive that forward?

[00:50:14] Chris: And so there's a lot of great things. We've talked, we talked a lot about it during Strive plan, and I know we've talked about it some in, in some of the episodes that might, but that might be really fun to take some of those aspects and, and drive that as well. All right, number four. This is interesting to me relating to partners slash leaders in business.

[00:50:35] Chris: What do y'all think about that? Yeah,

[00:50:36] Joel: I mean this is, I think we see a ton of this in coaching. I mean, we get, uh, we get lots of questions. Those who are involved in partnerships, um, most partnerships are just a total struggle bus. Yes. And so we see a, a lot of that, um, they're relating to leaders, especially, especially like in key leader program.

[00:50:54] Joel: Um, how do I. You know, more successfully, a lot of those VPs and managers and directors are trying to learn to do [00:51:00] that, or they're trying to learn to work with their fellow leaders. How do we work in unity where we're not operating in silos? Um, cuz a lot of leaders are at odds, um, between, you know, sales teams and then those teams who have to fulfill or create a lot of

[00:51:13] Chris: work being sold, uh, two B very much.

[00:51:16] Chris: Yeah. Very much

[00:51:17] Joel: so by bad teaching. Exactly. And so there's a lot of conflict and a lot of disunity, uh, that we find ourselves coaching through all the time. I,

[00:51:25] Chris: I think, and I want to shout out to Magnus, Simon Arson, who has been with us for years and is a personal friend, uh, just an amazing guy. Um, you know, who, who has put so many of his leaders through the Key Leader program.

[00:51:40] Chris: And that was a big part of us recognizing we always wanted this layer of leadership training that we could do for the next layer of leadership. Right. But one of the things I think that. Really accelerated us putting that program in place years ago was the recognition of a leader learning from us and then going, [00:52:00] how do I get them up to the same speed?

[00:52:03] Chris: How do I take the person that I'm leading and get them caught up? I can't. I can't take all of my time. You're telling me to get outta leadership crazy cycle, and you're telling me this is gonna take a while, you know, to get this stuff off of my plate. How do I train them to be great leaders? And I think that was a big part of us accelerating the Q Leadership program and Wow, just stunning how much that has helped the higher level leader to relate to their own leaders.

[00:52:30] Chris: Mm-hmm. . And I think a lot of people make this horrible assumption that if you're the high level leader, you must know how to relate. And yet so many leaders are like, no, I'm in this position because I'm the one who got the furthest or has done this the best or whatever, but. What do I do with those guys?

[00:52:48] Chris: you know, those people under me.

[00:52:49] Aaron: Yeah. So that, uh, the other thing that I would add to even what you guys were talking about is understanding how vital communication and clear expectations are, whether it's with your leaders, [00:53:00] whether it's withs partners, that piece right there, I think brings so much clarity, uh, to that relationship.

[00:53:06] Aaron: It really does. Whether you're a, a team member leading up, if, like we talked about earlier to your leader, you know, having clarity, having setting great expectations just adds so much to that. Um, and you know, you're talking about the key leader program, Chris. I mean, we started that in May of 2019 with 12.

[00:53:24] Aaron: Key leaders. Yeah. And since then we've had 132 people come through the Key Leader program, and those are leaders that have been trained, that have worked with their leaders and have helped change their business and, and take that pressure off of the leader of going, how do I get my team to get on board with this stuff?

[00:53:41] Aaron: Yeah. It's just

[00:53:42] Chris: fantastic. I, I think it's great because, you know, it's modeling what you guys are doing. Hmm. Right? It's doing the things that saying, okay, here's how to be successful in this area. And it's helping those entrepreneurs. It's helping those business owners to go, well, you guys are doing it well.

[00:53:57] Chris: How in the world do I get my team to do it? Well, [00:54:00] and I think that, I will say that is probably of all the things that we do, obviously we get a lot of, um, business owners or leaders that, you know, while next level life is completely private, nobody gets to hear your information about it. People see the change and we get a lot of comments on that, but I think by far we've had the most comments.

[00:54:20] Chris: Over the last couple of years on how powerful the key leader program has been and how much they've been able to go, my gosh, my leaders are growing at a rapid rate and I love it. This has been so powerful and so much of that is just promotion of you, Aaron West, that great job that you've been doing. Uh, which also comes from the great leadership of Joel Fortner Amen.

[00:54:41] Chris: In training in this process. So number five, and I am super happy with this. I'm super happy with this because I feel like we've talked about this type of stuff. The three of us have talked about doing more, uh, relationship stuff for [00:55:00] years and just wanting to be able to create and do something in there.

[00:55:04] Chris: And I still think there is an aspect of this. We're just not hitting. and I don't know, I, I feel like there might be some fun, exciting things we can do. Some things that may be rolling around, uh, that's been rolling around in our minds for a long time. But number five is communicating with clarity in relationships.

[00:55:22] Chris: I take that to not be focused heavily on business. Mm-hmm. , I take that to b how do I get more clear? This is what we see nonstop at next level life. It is great to see that that's a top request from folks on, you know, in from the show. Yeah,

[00:55:41] Joel: totally. I'll say this is a, a close one, uh, close to my heart cuz I, I love, um, I love coaching couples.

[00:55:50] Joel: I love when spouses come through next civil life when a spouse comes through their spouse's event. Um, I love the Marriage Next Civil Life event that we do. Uh, we have one [00:56:00] coming up soon. We don't talk a lot about that. We don't, we never. So it's only for people who've come through. Both people have come through next civil life.

[00:56:06] Joel: Um, that then we will do a marriage event. And it's one, it is, I mean, everything, I feel like everything we do is powerful, but, and then we get teased by using powerful. I know, right? It's

[00:56:16] Chris: like you say it all the time. If you look

[00:56:17] Joel: up through it, they're like, wow, that actually really was powerful. Uh, it's like, well, that's why we say it.

[00:56:21] Joel: It is powerful. But the marriage event, um, is, is truly, uh, life changing for, for couples who go back and implement what they learn, but to be able to, it's like, it's like a leader coming through coaching. Wow, this is so much better when my key leaders and I are swimming in the same direction or in a marriage relationship or in any relationship.

[00:56:41] Joel: Wow, okay. I'm not now, I'm not doing this by myself. Now we are now moving together in unity. We're on the same page. There's a lot of relief there. There's a lot of freedom there. There's a lot of hope there, um, when you're both on the same page. And that's the part right there that, uh, that's so fulfilling for me.

[00:56:59] Joel: [00:57:00] I go

[00:57:00] Chris: back to when you came through next level life. What year was that? 13. 2013. And so, you know, uh, if people have been following us long enough, Mary Beth, my personal assistant for six years, close friend for so for so long you guys got married, we became close friends later on. You're working, you know, selling.

[00:57:23] Chris: And I always love, you know, the, to be able to tell people that, you know, you are selling from the bus ride after the Pentagon, or, or, yeah. Or at the hotdog stand in the middle courtyard in the Pentagon. We won't, we won't share that part. Uh, just that thought. It was so cool. But when you came through next level life, it was so impactful for you.

[00:57:42] Chris: But Mary Beth hadn't come through yet. Yeah. And, and a lot of that was the, well, Chris knows me so well. I know him so well. What is this gonna be like? Then finally she's like, I've gotta do this. And as I share first person to ever make me cry in an next level life was Mary Beth. Uh, but so [00:58:00] powerful. And I remember the times of you saying, I really can't wait for her to go through because I know things.

[00:58:05] Chris: And even though I'm explaining it to her and we're walking her through this, , um, she's not there yet and she doesn't know it. And the difference of when she went through and then your clarity and relationship and the closeness that you guys had after that, it's like that, it, it, it's not a secret, but it's like you have a secret that your spouse just doesn't know yet.

[00:58:26] Chris: Yeah. Mm-hmm. . And I can't wait for them to learn it because as soon as they get it, it's going to, they'll understand why. Yeah. Game changer. You know, I'm, I'm doing things differently. I'm, I'm battling these lies with truths. I'm changing my surface level of responses. I'm, uh, you know, I'm putting healthy boundaries in with certain people in my life that I have to, and I think it's just so crazy powerful.

[00:58:44] Chris: So I'm really excited about that. Okay. Here's another fantastic interesting note. Many of you would like to hear more success stories, and I've gotta say I'm stoked to hear that. Yeah. [00:59:00] Because I think in my mind, I always think, oh, people don't, people don't want to hear that. We've done a great job on the early days.

[00:59:07] Chris: We haven't done it in a long time, actually. Mm-hmm. of sharing like next level life success stories. Um, and those were some of the most powerful episodes. And you guys would hear people talking about, man, I just listened to this episode. I know I should be, I'm two years. I've known I need to go through next level life.

[00:59:22] Chris: It's time. I need to do it. Let me get me in there. And for some reason, you know, we've kind of backed away from the success stories. I love that. So that's something we need to, we're gonna take a hard work. Yeah. It's coming here. Yeah. How can we put more of those in? All right. So again, I, I, I, if I sound super excited, it's because I am super excited.

[00:59:40] Chris: You know, we've heard some great comments from you. This is the reason why we come in and we carve out so much time. The, the funny thing is, is that it's called the Crystal Urdo Show. Crystal Urda was only one part of this. We have, it's one day we, we went back a couple years ago, and Aaron, I think that I, I [01:00:00] tasked that to you of how many hours does our staff put on one of these episodes?

[01:00:07] Chris: And it was stunning. how much time we put into every single episode. I mean, if I remember correctly, it was something like 20 hours or something. Something like that. Something 20 man hours. Yeah. 20 episode per one episode, uh, to get this done. And so that's why this is exciting, because this is a passion of ours to be able to hear

[01:00:25] Joel: y you know, somebody's out there thinking it right now.

[01:00:28] Joel: I know. Then somebody's out there thinking, well, how come you made that mistake then ,

[01:00:32] Chris: let's dive into it hours. How would you possibly, like ever make a mistake on the show? That's so, that's so funny. We're gonna start getting emails from people going, I can make that shorter for you. No, you're, you're missing out.

[01:00:42] Chris: You're not understanding. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot, the process. We're not saying, oh my gosh, we screw this up and we spend 20 hours. It's the how important it is to, to drive this show, to change lives and help people. Mm-hmm. that we get 20 hours behind every episode. Uh, and I think we've, I, we've probably [01:01:00] tightened that up a little bit by just making some adjustments of things that weren't.

[01:01:03] Chris: You know, that we could make shorter, but still the concept is still the same. We put a lot into this and, and we want to, we desire, that's a lot of payroll going into free episodes all the time. The great thing is, is we've got some amazing insight into what you, the listener, are going through. We've heard what's been the most helpful episodes of content and we've heard what you want to hear in next year's line of episodes.

[01:01:28] Chris: And man, I cannot tell you enough. Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing your life and your journey with us. You know, as we have been sharing this with you guys, our lives, our journeys, um, our processes, all that kind of stuff, it is so powerful when it comes back the other direction. And I want to tell you, please do not think that we ever take that for granted.

[01:01:52] Chris: We don't get it enough. We would love more. Please let us know. Tell us. This has been an absolutely amazing nine years [01:02:00] and literally in a few weeks, 10 years, this is gonna work. We're gonna be able to say it's been 10 years, but we want to hear more from you. So please feel free to let us know how the show impacts your life.

[01:02:12] Chris: Let us know questions that you have, let us know, things you want to hear. All of that stuff you can send to podcast at Crystal Urdo, and we go through that. So, uh, Joel and Aaron, any final comments on what makes this content so powerful?

[01:02:25] Joel: You know, I, I, I just think it's the effort. Um, I think it's the effort we put into it, the.

[01:02:31] Joel: You know, I'm pretty heavily involved, um, in the process and the, the ideation on topics and how do we make it better. And Brian just constantly looking at how do we do it better? How do we make it better? Um, new ideas, new team members. Um, I mean, uh, the, Brian has been the, he's the first team member of this business ever.

[01:02:50] Joel: Um, they helped you get this thing going. Um, so he has so much, uh, just, you know, quote unquote corporate knowledge. But I think it's just the effort and the commitment to the show and, [01:03:00] and truly thinking through what do people want, what do people want to hear, rather than like, oh yeah, we have, you know, some episodes to crank out.

[01:03:08] Joel: Let's bust out a bunch of really. You know, light 10 minute episodes just to, you know, fill the content void and put it out there just to keep the show going and yada, yada yada. It, it's not like that. Our core values of our company of, of things like excellence and, and our focus on changing lives comes through and how the team makes decisions concerning the show.

[01:03:31] Chris: You know, I think something people don't know, I know they don't know, cuz we've never talked about this and I don't even know how much you guys know this to, because so much of it comes straight to me. People find, I assume you get a bunch of this, Aaron, maybe you don't. , I get an incredible number of requests for people to be on the show.

[01:03:50] Chris: Hmm. I mean mm-hmm. an incredible number all the time. Yep. And so I, you guys are getting 'em too. Yeah. Okay. So that means the three of us are [01:04:00] all getting a phenomenal number of requests for people to be on the show that we look at. I'm assuming you guys look at it. Mm-hmm. , uh, cuz I go through and I will look at people and I'll look at these requests and it is nos 99.999% of the time.

[01:04:15] Chris: Yeah. Because it is not a, oh, I don't want to have this person on the show. It is this person, their message is not going to impact our people. The, the folks that are following us and listening to us. This message isn't good enough. I don't, gosh, I hate to say it though. It's not that the message isn't good enough, it's not that the person isn't good enough.

[01:04:34] Chris: It isn't, it isn't align. It's not gonna align Well, that's how I should say. It's not gonna align well enough. With the, the folks following the show. When we do have our guests on the show, we feel like it aligns amazingly. We get um, uh, you know, lots of responses. So, especially that Aaron West guy. That Aaron West guy.

[01:04:50] Chris: Yeah, totally. It's

[01:04:51] Aaron: on the great occasion that he's on. Yeah, I was actually gonna say, the thing that I love about all this content is ass timeless. You know, you go back to the very big, the very first [01:05:00] episode of the podcast, you've got 500 episodes now of content. That doesn't matter. When you listen to it, it's gonna have an impact.

[01:05:07] Aaron: It's gonna matter. You know, it's not like we have a bunch of stuff that's tied to what's going on in the world right now, and it's only time, you know, it only matters for that moment in time. This stuff carries on and this is years and years of experience, wisdom doing things the wrong way, you know, that have led through all this content that we've got here and the fact that we can look back on this and we can come back to this content and know.

[01:05:35] Aaron: This is still good. This is still valid for my business, for my family, for my team, for my kids. This is, this is the powerful

[01:05:43] Chris: stuff right here. I love it. I love it. I love it. All right folks. Uh, we have enjoyed this time, but we have an exciting moment right now. Which is we need to announce the finale, the winners of the 500th episode giveaway.

[01:05:58] Aaron: All right, so Chris, I'm excited to [01:06:00] announce the prizes for this 500th giveaway. This has been such a, a fun time, uh, that we've been having and hearing some great stuff that we've been talking about on the podcast today. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna start with our fourth place prizes. These people get a free crystal cardo t-shirt, uh, and we've got five winners that we're gonna announce.

[01:06:16] Aaron: So those five winners are Carol Gable, ran Staley, David, no. Chris Sellers and Nathan Morales. Yeah. Woo. Woo.

[01:06:28] Joel: Man, that's a good shirt. I love

[01:06:30] Chris: that. I

[01:06:31] Joel: actually love our shirt. I think it's best every day. Best every day I wear our gear. I know. I catch you. Not every day. Same here. Yeah.

[01:06:37] Chris: That's awesome. Good time.

[01:06:38] Chris: Yeah, you go. Awesome.

[01:06:39] Aaron: All right, so our third place prizes, we are giving three crystal cardo hats, and those winners are Frank Allgood, Scott Myers and Peter McLennon. Yeah.

[01:06:51] Chris: All right. Again, , keep the sun outta your eyes, my friends. I hate to say I think our hat's the best. I love it. I actually, I, I love the hat.

[01:06:59] Chris: It's my favorite [01:07:00] hat to wear. It's so funny because I, I can't wear Crystal Curtos. I don't wear stuff with my name on it. I'll wear it with the, with the logo. I dunno if you guys have ever noticed that I'll usually order something with a. So it doesn't say Chris Urdo. I just like, it just feels weird to have my own name.

[01:07:11] Chris: Well, it's funny

[01:07:12] Joel: to actually, when other people, you know, we wear stuff that says Chris Urdo and people are like, Hey Chris. Yeah. Oh,

[01:07:17] Chris: then do they really, it's like, it's not a badge, it's part of the company I Tech, I got one

[01:07:22] Joel: time. It's like they saw the spider jacket we have. Yeah. You know, it's all cool looking and someone's like, is that a band they ran?

[01:07:29] Joel: Yes. Saw

[01:07:30] Chris: the logo, saw the spider and saw Chris Urdo and Red and they're like,

[01:07:34] Joel: is that a band?

[01:07:34] Chris: I was like, no. Yes, yes. It's the company. Yes. It's, it'll be soon. Oh my

[01:07:38] Aaron: goodness. All alright. A family band, . All right, so we're gonna give out three second, uh, play prizes. And this is a single disc plus assessment.

[01:07:47] Aaron: And so our three winners for that are Andy Willingham, Emily Low. And Kathleen Payne. Yeah. All right. Now, I don't know if you guys have, uh, do this, but the disc assessments are one [01:08:00] of my favorite things. Oh, gosh. That we do. It's just, it's just so great. There's so much value. It's core.

[01:08:04] Joel: It's core to our company.

[01:08:05] Chris: Yeah. And it, it, it just, it, it's so funny how it's like everybody needs this. It's something that it, it's, believe it or not, it is the gift that keeps on giving to quote, uh, you know, what's his that and the pardon? The month, was it Clark or was it his Who, who's the, it's the gift that keeps on giving. Oh, that was, uh, it was Randy K's Randy's character, whatever his name is.

[01:08:24] Chris: Cousin Eddie. Cousin Eddie. Cousin Eddie. That's right. Because it, it really is, it is something that we use in every aspect of our life, not just work, literally relationships, everything. So, good stuff. Good, good, good. All right, so

[01:08:36] Aaron: our runner up, we've got one runner up prize, and this is our Understanding Personality Styles lesson, video, and a dis plus assessment for this person.

[01:08:45] Aaron: And that winner is. Steve Daniel. Woo-hoo.

[01:08:50] Chris: Awesome. Good

[01:08:51] Aaron: stuff. Oh, I hope you love that. Yeah. Call me if you have any questions on that. I love this stuff. I love teaching about this stuff, so happy to, happy to talk with anything on that. Uh, and [01:09:00] then our grand prize. This is the big one. Oh my. So we're giving 50.

[01:09:03] Aaron: We need another drum roll. Yeah, we

[01:09:04] Chris: need another drum roll there. We're giving 50% off . That's amazing. Drum . That's impressive. I dunno what country those drum started. The band. I started the family ban

[01:09:15] Aaron: band there. It's, we're giving 50% off either our next level mastermind, our next level life, or our key leader program.

[01:09:21] Aaron: This person gets to choose. And so we're excited to announce that our grand prize winner of our 500th giveaway episode is Katie Kelly.

[01:09:30] Chris: Yeah. Woo. Congratulations. That's awesome. Oh, that was so fun. Uh, I gotta say I love giving away stuff. I just love it. And so I think this is some fun stuff. We're so excited that people entered.

[01:09:45] Chris: Mm-hmm. , uh, we're so excited that we got some amazing information from you guys. Uh, if you're one of the top winners, then you've probably been contacted already by Mr. Aaron West here, but if not, and you heard your name, then just drop us a [email protected], [01:10:00] um, so that he can make sure that you get your stuff.

[01:10:03] Chris: Uh, so excited. Uh, again, still any comments, any questions, any information, um, you know, anything where you want to hear more topics, any of that stuff, podcast at Chris Urdo. We would absolutely love to hear from you. Gosh, does that mean we're at the end of our 500, our trip

[01:10:23] Aaron: memory lane? Close. I'll see you guys in 10 years,

[01:10:28] Chris: right?

[01:10:29] Chris: I don't wanna end this thing. Oh, geez. Okay. Well folks, Hopefully this has helped you today. Uh, I can tell you if you hear the joy in our voices, uh, you have helped us today. Mm, you have, you have just made this worth doing. You have made this something that we love to spend this much time on. Uh, and it is so great to hear your success stories.

[01:10:51] Chris: So help us, let us, let us hear from you. We want to hear your success stories. We would love to be able to share that. Let us know if we can share some of those success stories on air as well. [01:11:00] Hopefully this information has helped you today. Thank you for celebrating with us today, the work that God is doing in and through youth.

[01:11:09] Chris: And as always, take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on episode 5 0 1.