Ep 26: From prison to professional trainer and pro marathon runner: transforming himself through neuro hacking

Sean Tierney: 00:02:28 All right. Hey everybody. Welcome to the nomad podcast. This is Sean and I’m sitting across from Christian Oosterveen. Christian is a human growth hacker, a neuro hacker, behavioral psychologist, trainer, business strategists, currently focused on building growth cultures via his company, creatures of habits. Welcome Christian.

Christian: 00:03:00 Hi, thanks for having me.

Sean: 00:03:04 Awesome. Okay, so let me just kind of give people the backstory on how we met. First off. So we met earlier this year through a local incubator here in Lisbon called Bait the e uh, on the rooftop of this place. There was like their pitch day and just ended up talking for, I want to say like two hours about just all sorts of stuff. Um, so I’m super excited. I’m super excited because we had a lot of synergy and a lot of common ground. Totally. And what are we doing? Totally. Um, so yeah, so we’re going to dig into all that stuff that we were talking about, but before we do, I kind of, I think the place to start here is with your marathon project. So can you talk about what you’re doing with that? Yeah, sure, sure. So I’m now in Lisbon, just moved from Amsterdam to Lisbon and it’s with training for marathon hacking and marathon hacking is, it’s like stress testing my own course. So I’m now living as kind of a digital nomad.

Christian: 00:03:43 I called more international business man or international entrepreneur and I’ve created this course, which is all focused on implementation. And that was the main thing for me to transform. You have to implement. So we read all the books and we living in this beautiful area with all the information on books, on the Internet and there are all these experts. But how do you implement all this information into your life? So that’s the key thing, what we’re doing with marathon hacking. So I decided to become a top three, top 2% marathon runner from scratch as a non athlete, having no experience with marathons, you’re not no experience in running food, you know, for instance, my background, my, my initial background is hospitality and working as a sommelier in restaurants. And if you ask me about nutrition, then it’s always about five courses in wine. So I’m a good place here in Lisbon, but is a good place to run as well because there are a lot of hills.

Christian: 00:04:42 And I know because I watched, I, I stocked it beforehand with the Strava, Strava runs that you’re running like in little hilly part, I, I run along the water, like the hilliest parts are, right. Yeah. And a half, two because it’s a so d day. So what I have to decided to do is to see, to stress test my own program of hyper growth and can we really heck out of personal growth by implementing things better and do my key principles about the brain, about psychology, really work. And then I’m focusing on about the subconscious principles. And what’s interesting is, is we’re going to do this in six months time to transform me from scratch to this top 2% marathon runner. And it all has to happen on the 20th of October here in Lisbon, during the Lisbon Marathon. And I’ll tell you, that one’s going to be hilly, which I did at no, but it’s the one of the most beautiful marathons in the world.

Christian: 00:05:32 So that’s why I’ve decided to do it. So it’s all gonna happen here, but yeah, I need the hills. Nice man. So, okay, so you basically the marathon is like proof is in the pudding. You’ve developed this transformational thing that took you from, you’re like, you know, basically vastly improved every aspect of your life, but you’re now taking this exact same framework and proving that that works by doing a marathon from nothing. Absolutely. Because I’ve got one, one key thing, and I call this little bit the circle of life as in we see a lot of experts and I’m an export. I want to be an expert in helping other people. But, um, I know that I’m only able to teach others when I’ve been through it myself. And that’s the main thing. So I thought if I really want to teach people about transformation, I have to go to, I’ve been already through a transformation myself because when I was in January, 2015 it was in prison because I was so much in depth and totally struggled and broken any area of my life.

Christian: 00:06:27 And I had to go through it. And by studying self development, I had to find the, with the key principles, roots really, you know like the Perico yeah. It’s about what are the 20% principles, which gives you the 80% of results. And I needed them because I was so in pain as so in scarcity. So all of these things have figured out over w on the way, which worked for me. I’ve now created this program out of it and I’m not stressed testing it so I can teach this to other people if they want to transform or grow faster and especially to work because it’s not just to go from depressed to neutral. I think it’s even more fun to go from depressed to being kick ass. Can you take us back? So, uh, I was going to get there later but I’m, I’m glad you brought it up.

Christian: 00:07:11 So the prison situation, like take us back. What was the scenario that puts you there and how did you get out of it? Okay, that’s a long story. But the long story short, no, it was January, 2015 and I still remember that day that I was there with my girlfriend where we were having a romantic night watching TV and I actually asked financial issues. I was living together with her, but I was struggling with this big debt and it wasn’t that which started when I started with my first entrepreneurial things, I wasn’t able to get an income for a couple months. And actually what happened is I wasn’t able to pay my insurance for my car and scooter and this is just 38 years a month and I wasn’t able to deal with that. So it was seven years for my scooter insurance for 31 years for my car insurance.

Christian: 00:08:00 And actually what happened is the Dutch government, they are really keen on it and they just gave me 350 euro fine per vehicle and three months later this same fine was about 1500 euros and that two times. And I got this fine six times. So in a couple months, every everything, you know, I wasn’t the right person when I started my entrepreneurial journey and my mind, my everything blocked in my hat when I got into depth and it made sense because my bet always told me when you end that you never get out of it. And I believed it, but this was a subconscious belief and I really did. This is how it started and it all went viral. It all when sound in the end it went south and spiraled. So this is where it started. And at one point, so this was in 2012 and then in 2015 it was the moment where I was living with my girlfriend.

Christian: 00:08:53 And then one night at nine 30 at night, we’re watching TG Kendall’s red wine and then the doorbell rang and the police was standing there, can you pay your fines? Which was about 9,000 euros. And I said, no. Then they said, okay, can you please back your back and come with us? And Yeah, they got me into the car and I was in prison for over 10 days and it was supposed to be there for 51 days. And the interesting thing in the Netherlands, it’s a weird system because it’s, this happens and I know you have to do your, you know, you have to fulfill your promises and you have to be insured not to get bigger problems. But the interesting thing is this is when you are in prison, it’s not even to pay off the fines. It literally is just a pressure method to make you pay.

Christian: 00:09:39 But how are you going to pay it if you don’t have to 9,000 jurors? Right? So this is just, so when I was in there, I had to to show them how it, well, but it was a life changing experience and I’ve learned so much. And maybe the saddest part of this whole story was that when I was there I was actually relaxed because living outside prison was way more stressful for me. So just having a little look when you’re like, absolutely. No, I think that the Lope loan was even before that. So when I got into depth and I totally was stuck, didn’t know how to get out of it. That was a moment where I was really lost friends, screwed up relationships, screwed up business opportunities, you know, I was literally, I didn’t know how to get out of it. That was the real point.

Christian: 00:10:25 And even at the point that you think like, you know, life is so painful, I think it’s even less painful to go with our life. You know that you even go cedar dose opportunities. Yeah. And that was the main low point. Low Point. Yeah. They’re in prison. That was a moment. It was so in the between 2012 2015 that was a moment, which really accelerated a lot because it makes you think, and actually it gave me confidence because what I’ve learned is like living in this mini ecosystem, I’ve learned so much and actually I realized what skills I have and which I wasn’t using because in my head I was so broke, so fixed and stuck and actually it got me rolling. I mean arguably it sounds like it was the catalyst. I mean, do you think you would have done what you’ve done today?

Christian: 00:11:13 Had you not gone through that, that event, the main fee? Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, yeah. Yeah, because I still remember one moment when I was taking a shower there. Does it, and let’s put things in context because we’re now hearing Lisbon there in the Netherlands. I tell you a lot of digital, no much, they sleep in hostels, which are way worse than prison in the Netherlands. So we had this double bunk beds, our own shower, and you’ve got your microwave and you know, it’s your room. It’s fixed. But the good thing is it will save note that the collector’s there, and I actually will head an escape of my life. And that was it. Of course, it was super stressful and we can have a full podcast about what I’ve learned there. But it’s, um, the, the moment, the number one thing I had to ask myself there was, how can I make this worth it?

Christian: 00:12:05 Because I tell you the the moment that you, so they took me to the prison and the first night I was in this small local police station and then they brought me to the real prison with all the criminals and all the crooks and all the bad guys. And then you have to call your mum that your dad and I’ll tell you that’s the number one thing you don’t want to do. Yeah. And it was that moment that you know, you have some time to think and you really have to go to that point as in why is it worth it? Or how can I make it worth it? So I made a commitment to myself as in I have to transform myself. I have to deal with my shit. I have to take accountability for everything and I have to find a way. And now I’m happy that I haven’t been able to find my way on an emotional level. But at that point I was, I didn’t have a clue.

Sean Tierney: 00:12:56 I think it’s interesting. I know you do the gratitude practice. And I think I remember you telling me that one of your gratitude statements was, you know, at least this is a clean prison and not, you know, a debtor’s prison in Dubai.

Christian: 00:13:08 Yeah, no, no, it’s, it’s the main thing. And it’s, you know, I was watching the youtube videos like we all do to improve our lives and to, to become a better person or to deal with our shit and the main thing. And I still remember like, you know, I cannot feel gratitude, gratitude for anything. And then at one point it really was like, I’m grateful for the fact that I’m in shit in the Netherlands and not in and out of country. Yeah. And it’s funny because for the moment you start saying that to yourself, you start recognizing the opportunities which are able to get you out. And it’s because, well, what opportunities you won’t have in other things. So that was a key thing, but it was, it took me so much energy to get and to feel it and do, to get there. Because every morning I woke up, I was stressed. My brain was just in fight, flight, freeze the hole every single second, every single second, and this is how I know you following Wim Hof with a briefing and a cold showers. I needed my cold showers every morning to get me out of that state, so I was just jumping every morning on there called Sharon. I’ve actually, it was 2015 when I started to take the cold showers from that point.

Sean Tierney: 00:14:16 Yeah. So what, what was it then that was like, you’re at that point, you kind of came to that conclusion like, I’m going to get myself out of here. I’m going to get right. Then what was the path out of there? How did you those 11 days in prison, then you got out, someone bailed you out presumably?

Christian: 00:14:33 No, no, actually no. That because that’s, I’ve developed my cold calling skills there because I had to phone all my friends who are saying, guys, I need 9,000 jurors. Can you guys get me out? And then I realized, I learned one really big thing because the people I phone that all, or they didn’t have the money or they did have the money in to do and want to to me. So I learned two things actually, or I’m having the wrong friends or I’m, my relationship with my friends is not good enough. Which was true because I wasn’t able to give because I was in the survival mode all the time and adjust, focused on myself and I never built a relationship so it didn’t have to friendships, it didn’t hit the business partners that time. So I knew I was the cause of it, but it was, um, yeah.

Christian: 00:15:14 So the moment that we got me out was when we are able to prove how my situation financially was and that I didn’t have the money. So you can force me whatever you want. It costs, I think it costs about 250 euros a day for the Dutch government to have me there. So there’s no earning potential while there. So there’s indeed. So it was, you know, they don’t want to have me down there. I know the hotel so, so I know off the five days we were able to show them to send them all the proof and then we were not able to do is in 48 hours before the weekend. And because we didn’t show the proof of me being in that situation before the weekend I had to stayed all weekend and finally on the Monday afternoon they, they gave me the money to get back home and they, I was free again.

Christian: 00:16:04 Uh, okay. So you got out of prison, you know, at this point you’re catalyzed to do better. And then what, what did you listen to or what did you read that then started to form your, like whatever this framework is that you developed for transformation? Wow, that’s a good question. Actually. It’s, I wasn’t that conscious. I did things. The number one thing I felt was, you know, the only thing what made me help survive and on what I, what were the videos in Youtube, Tony Robbins, Les Brown, now you know, Jim Roan and I was just studying them and this already was happening in 2012 when I was on my low point. And there was one point that I had this physio clip, a really recommended school potential. Sure. And funny enough potentially as the main thing I’m now teaching people in what’s your potential attitude to do it.

Christian: 00:16:51 But there were, so this was this video clip with Les Brown, Tony Robinson. I was just focusing on this all the time. But the main change, what happened for me was that the understanding and why I was in this position, well six months later, and it was going to an event of TRF Eker. I didn’t know if you know him with tech or totally or no, no. T Harv Eker. Oh, I don’t, uh, he’s, he’s a must guy to follow everyone who wants to learn about money, money mindset because this was this three day event. And it’s an interesting journey because it’s a three day event, 12 hours a day training, and they explained why millionaires are millionaires and why broke people are broke and it was all with our subconscious beliefs and they were showing me the NLP behind it, how we get conditioned and actually how I got conditioned with one of these beliefs I already mentioned with my dad to say, you know when you’re in debt, you never get out of it.

Christian: 00:17:42 If that’s your belief, how likely are you to get out of it? You’re not right because that’s the thing. If that’s the thing you believe and you have to change these beliefs, but where do these beliefs coming from and how do you change that? That’s a complex thing. How does one even know what those are? Because it seems to be like the water in your fish tank is the best analogy I can describe it. Like how do you even start to know what the limiting beliefs are that you have buried? Yeah. The main thing, and this is the exciting thing right now with the marathon because I’m now in the position as in starting as a non running, doing the marathon as in how do you recognize your beliefs? And what I say is just look at you, people around you and listen to their beliefs because we already efforts, I think it’s a Jim Rome quote, is we already ever justify food we hang out with.

Christian: 00:18:30 Yeah. And it’s so true because our mirror neurons, they pick up the behavior, they pick up the energy, they pick up the full patterns off all the people who are around us. If you have a baby and a baby looks you in the eyes, the baby gets the same brain frequency as you got. So we really become our own environment and that’s something they were showing in that during that event. And to get back on the whole framework, what happened actually after the three days, so they gave us this thing and they said they showed us what were our current beliefs about money. And I had a lot of bet beliefs about money as in, you know, I didn’t appreciate it. Didn’t respect rich people. I felt like, wow, they must do something wrong. How come my dad, he, he’s really the guy in labor and he’s my best mentor and my best teacher, he doesn’t know it, but he is.

Christian: 00:19:20 But it’s the, the beliefs I had around rich people making money, what’s possible? What is impossible that was all programmed in it. Now I know that we get programmed in the first seven years of our life, we get conditioned, our brains are in a state of hypnosis. So the first seven years of our life we just get conditioned. And if you hang around with someone who’s really broke, who was really struggling, you just get all these beliefs. So that’s what they showed me there. And after three days, and this was the interesting thing, they gave us a journal and they said we were there with 400 people and they gave us a 90 day journal and it was just five minutes a day doing the journal. One simple habit. And I thought that I can do it. And they asked us all 400 of us, how many of you are going to do this?

Christian: 00:20:06 And of course we will all after three days you’re pumped. You know, it’s one of these events you see with Tony Robbins. If you see the documentary on Netflix, you know you’re all dancing and all in a good state and having fun. So we all fall on the committed to do it. And off the day, I think it was day 38 somewhere around day 38 I was in my bed and I stopped doing the habit and I thought, isn’t it interesting, I’m still broke. I’m still depressed, you know, and little somewhere in the afternoon I’m in a bad situation and I stopped doing the number one habit because the, the reason we were doing that habit was to rewrite a ring. Cause what I do the most neuroscientist say if you do something for 90 days, then the habit goes from conscious habit to a subconscious habit.

Christian: 00:20:50 Yeah. But what I realized there is I wasn’t doing it. And then I follow it like I have to do something with this because it’s, if I understand how we create habits, then I’m able to change my lives. And this is how I started my business. Creatures of habits. But it’s what was even more interesting. I started to study all the people who’ve been there at the same event and guess how many people were able to do the 90 days in 90 days. I would very few but five zero zero out of all 400 there was not anyone doing it. There were only about eight, seven, eight who were doing it in 120 250 days. And there were all single women. Uh, yeah, single moms, but it was a high level single moms there in the, in the audience. But I love found it so fascinating.

Christian: 00:21:43 Like isn’t it interesting we just ask people to do one habit for 90 days and not even, so it’s interesting how we read and we go to the videos and learn about the 90 days to form habits. And actually it’s, it sounds great and it is true when you do the brain scans to have people doing it for 90 days. But to give yourself a habit and to do it for 90 days, it’s almost impossible. So this is how I started my journey in studying the brain. And this is how I got into neuroscience and started to study the best neuroscientists in the world with old their science about how do habits get formed, how do we get primed, how can we rewrite our brain, how can we, how does hypnosis work? And it was all implementing it all myself because I was in a bad situation and I felt a pain to get out of it.

Christian: 00:22:28 And actually what happened is in, so what I started to do further was working, um, with two great guys from the UK, which were doing a lot of events around business and lifestyle and how do you start your business? How do you grow, how do you, are you able to, to make millions? Because that was a little bit my commitment as in, okay, the number one thing I’m going to do now is now they show me all the way how to become a millionaire. I had to do it and maybe one good thing to mention is, and I’ve been to this event, the millionaire mind intensive with Tiara Becker, I’ve been there six times in three years, just says repetition and I used to this checklist to see of hang on, he gives me the mindset I need to get to get myself out of the situation, which at one point was over 120,000 years of debt, so it started with 15 and because I was so stuck and I tried things but I wasn’t capable enough and it all ended up in 120,000 euros and it was not just me because it’s if you got in the Netherlands, there is a business, there’s an industry behind depth as there is everywhere.

Christian: 00:23:34 Yeah. No, because there are people like that that collecting agencies are making a lot of money. They say, Oh, you don’t respond or you’re not able to pay here. We doubled the price, we doubled it now as in, so you created me who you know, why, you know, it’s, it’s like me coming here and now walking out and saying to you like, oh, by the way, I spent some time with you. Can you please pay me? Oh, you’re not now I gotta give you to another debt collection agency and do it again. And again, it’s, it doesn’t make sense. So, but what I started to do is I started to study, morphed. Every time I went to the millionaire mind intensive, I started to study the people there and off the day after the first time I actually started my own accountability group because I thought, hang on, this is what’s working.

Christian: 00:24:15 Because the second time I was able to do the 90 days in 90 days. And then the first time I thought, can I teach this to other people? And we had this Facebook group with over a hundred 1,520 people, I think. And I loved that we were able to do with 13 of them to get the 90 days in 90 days by implementing all the ways in habit. And that was, that was for me to start up my business and then I started to do accountability programs can do in helping people to reach their goals because that was the main thing. At one point I had another tough moment as in getting the letter while I was staying with my parents and getting the letter that the debt collection agency was coming to my parents’ place to take their stuff. And that’s not a position you want to be in.

Christian: 00:25:00 And I just had three weeks to make 3000 euros. So the business which came up, which was the initial start of my program, which was a, so what I started to do is I just found all my friends in a sense. What’s your goal for this month? Pay me a hundred jurors. Are you willing to pay me a hundred jurors to reach their goal? If you don’t do it, then I pay you back. I didn’t know how to pay back because I needed the money to pay it all off. But that was my main thing and this is how my business got started.

Sean Tierney: 00:25:30 So with those 13 people that you were able to get through to that point, can you summarize what was the essence of that like it sounds like you saw the, the, the endpoint. You saw this 90 day thing that you needed to do, but then it’s ultimately like walking that path is everything but you, but many people never walked the path. So what was it that you, what was the key insight that caused those 13 people to do the steps necessary? The thing

Christian: 00:25:58 what’s good is when people go to events, it’s like you’re part of a group, you’re part of tribe. And that was the main thing is in, because I created this Facebook group and, but I invested a lot of time to engage people. And the number one thing, what I’ve learned, because this is what I did in the meantime as well, was study in peak performance and how do they use their brain and how do they use their brain differently compared to me. What are their beliefs, what, how do they focus? And that’s what I did with the people is actually we created a moment that we already accomplished the 90 days in the future. So I booked a table at a nice restaurant and we said this is going to be the party that we’ve completed it. So we saw us already it and then it was a matter of fact this in do you want to be part of the group who’s not going to achieve it or not?

Christian: 00:26:49 So actually this is how we created a tribe and it’s like you’re in the tribe or not. And when you’re in the tribe you’re able to deal with the habits. And actually this is the moment because then what happened is that you get this to the point where you know, our brain hates pain. Just we avoid pain in any way. If you have a task which takes longer than 20 seconds, our pain center lights up so it’s anything that take longer than 20 seconds, it’s painful. We procrastinate on it or we need to find a reason which is more painful. So the habit or the discipline becomes less painful relatively relatively than the outcome you’re going to miss out if you don’t do the habit. And this is why people get disciplined and it’s interesting when you know it because now you can teach anyone to become disciplined when you let them focus like this people.

Christian: 00:27:37 So what I did is in with this accountability group, I just let them focus in on the party and share and gauge and I was just doing a community management around it. But the main thing was getting them focused on, that’s the party coming up and I was just reminding them about the party while they’re doing it and that of course I was one of the lead group leaders. But then you saw people follow up, like following me. And this is another one is the first follower having the first follower. And so we get them focused on it. So they knew like, or I do the habit today because we know we always have bad habits. So that was the main thing is, you know, it was every day you just ask yourself the question, do I miss the party often 90 days or do a or am I skipping the habit today as sometimes life happens.

Christian: 00:28:31 And that was, so that was, this was the main thing. The second thing was actually it was just teaching people with strategy how to deal with it. And this is something of I’ve learned while studying the people have, or do you know the Nike breaking too? I don’t, it’s an amazing documentary. It’s about, um, actually they’re doing it again, but not, it’s not Nike, it’s another company from the UK. So they’ve had the, the fastest marathon runners in the world and they were seeing, can we bring the world record on the two hours? And at that point we’ll work at rose about two hours, three minutes. So what they’ve done is they’ve got three of the fastest Nike marathon runners that gave them the special shoes. They did all the innovation that did all the programs and they said, okay, what are the ideal con conditions that we can let the human being running a marathon under two hours?

Christian: 00:29:22 And it’s, it is as big as the four minute mile, which we all know with a banister. So what they’ve done, what Nike has done, they went to Monza in Italy because this was the perfect conditions of the secret. It was round, not too many corners. There were, there was the right humidity, the right temperature, everything was perfect. And they had the special shoes, they had the special training. And what they had is that they had a group of other marathon runners which run one lap with them and then they changed the group. So to keep the run out of the wind and to get them in the group. And what they did, and actually I’m still, it shows how hard it is to really improve on that level is they even had a car in front of it with a big screen. So they didn’t, they ran without the wind or that the car was capping keeping them out of the wind.

Christian: 00:30:13 And what was funny is that one guy, um, Kipp Jogi, he was able to run it in, sorry, I’m gonna this is going to be the how do you [inaudible] yeah, this is going to be displayed. And so there was the fastest guy get Jogi he was able needs the current marathon will work on, he was able to do it in two hours, 20 seconds, but the other two, and I found this way more interesting and this is what I’ve learned from it. And then the other two guys, so they were in the ideal circumstances, they were not even able to come close to their prs on the marathon. So isn’t it interesting that you got three guys that got, you put them all three in the same situation, in the perfect conditions, everything is perfect and why are two out of three not even able to break their PR one that are in the ideal circumstances.

Christian: 00:31:04 I flipped that was interesting and this has to do and this is a key principle in the brain is being the principle of being behind and this is what you see with a lot of people. When you do a 90 day journal, when you miss one day you feel behind and the moment we feel behind our brain experience scarcity and we literally block our energy and we’re not able to flow anymore and the only guy who was able to keep up with the pace of the car, which was supposed to run at one hour, 59 minutes and some seconds only that guy was able to stay in the flow of getting there. But it’s a focus way and how do you focus? And he used the guy who really implements gratitude while running. But the other two guys that don’t use this during, and this is a nice come back in what we were saying about gratitude and how important it is, but the other two guys, they were just fighting of keeping up.

Christian: 00:31:53 And when we feel, when we tried to keep up with our goals, with our own routines and we are behind, we just even don’t show up on our regular level B B fall below. And this was the main thing. What we did with the group is teaching them a strategy and how to do, what do you do when you miss a day? Because sometimes life happens, you know, in the morning you’re going to fire in your house, your destruction goes everywhere or you just have your busy day. What do you do if you’re not, you see all the other people in the group doing the 90 days and keeping up on the right day. And what was interesting in it is that, um, by teaching them as the strategy is done, if you could do it the next time, just do three or four days just at once, but do it over. So the habits which you have to do with journal was write down five wins of today. So you still can do it. You can just do it one day later. But just with teaching people this strategy of how to deal with the scarcity of where they are and where they want to be, that’s what I,

Sean Tierney: 00:32:57 so it sounds like forgive yourself basically and then catch up the next day and then clear, like mentally clear that mistake and don’t let that be the thing that like drags you down.

Christian: 00:33:07 Yeah. Or even more important than this is, you know, this is something I really got conscious of in, um, it’s funny that this was the, I was reading the autobiography of Richard Branson because the good thing is, is, so I packed my bag when the police was in front of my door and my girlfriend, she, at that time, she did put my book in my bag of Richard Branson and I was allowed to read in the prison cell because I wasn’t, you know, I didn’t do that much wrong. I just had to be there without my belt, without my laces. And I couldn’t sleep at night. And I was reading the book of Richard Branson. And funny enough, he was saying in the second chapter as in, he was in prison. And he said, the moment I was in prison, I realized that there are normal people, there are good people in prison.

Christian: 00:33:53 And that gave me such a good thing about how of what film by me but more interesting was he has his, um, when you look at Richard Branson, what he does, and this is what you see with a lot of people forming, and this was the pattern I figured out, is that what they do is they look at an outcome and they always blame the plan and the strategy instead of blaming themselves. And it’s this, this connection of who am I and who’s my plan? What’s my strategy to make that distinction? And this is a key thing with got me through the system and this was the number. This is one of the number one things I teach leaders. I teach managers, I teach people is in, if you look at your life and you’re not happy where you are right now, it’s not you. It’s your plan. It’s not you, it’s your strategies, it’s the decisions you make. And yes, a lot of them you do subconsciously, but it’s not who you are. So this connects your identity from your outcome and start loving who you are. Start finding about why am I love and this, this connection was another one. So when you say is in a forgive yourself, you can forgive yourself, but way better is just forgive your plan. What are your strategy?

Sean Tierney: 00:35:07 Yeah, what it reminds me of, I’ve heard of research around a parents, like two groups of parents in terms of how they tell their kids when they do a good job. They say, you know, they both get good grades and then one group says, oh, you know, you’re so talented. The other one says, oh, you work so hard for that. And just that subtle distinction of, I mean to me this is what it sounds like is B, you, you know, you are so talented, meaning inherently this is just the way you are versus Oh, you worked really hard for that. Like good execution on your plan, in your words. It’s almost like that’s this fundamental distinction. And uh, the end result is those ones that are told, oh, you know, you’re so talented. When they inevitably fall short of that, then they feel like a failure and they feel like, Oh I, this is just me and I’m not. But then when the people who said, oh, you work so hard and they fall short, they realize, oh, I just need to like get back in and work harder and like, so it’s just like this massive difference.

Christian: 00:36:02 I love what you’re saying. Please send this to me because this is one of the resources. That’s because this is what you see all the time and it’s just by listening and this is what I do when I work as a consultant or when I do coaching or you know, when I hear people blaming themselves, then it’s like, okay, let me see. Whoa, how did you do your decisions? And this was one big realization I had to do, and this is the key thing, but peak performers have is they, they are focused about two things. Number one is where do I want to end up, which is the end day of doing the 90 days. But the other one is where am I now? And it’s interesting because when you know where you are, then you know what strategy will bring you from a to B. And it’s um, when you, when you are able to, so when you make mistakes, but when you feel bad about yourself, that’s the moment you don’t see a solution of how to go from a to B.

Christian: 00:36:54 When you start feeling like a failure with you say, you know, I told myself so many times that my identity was the guy being in debt. And when you see all the psychology and people recognize it, this is when you look at your life. We are actually addicted to our problems. And the reason why is because when I have an issue and I tell you my issue, I get your attention. We connect. So we fulfill our needs with our issues as well. And the hardest thing, and WWE has been my hardest thing is how do I grow myself as a person and who am I if I don’t, if I’m not in depth anymore because I was actually fulfilling my needs with it because this made me unique. You know, we like to be pro part of tribe, right? That’s one of the human needs, the main human needs of survival because we’re more likely to survive when we are in a tribe. But in the tribe we want to stand out. We want to be unique. How are you unique,

Sean Tierney: 00:37:44 which are problems. Yeah. I discovered this firsthand in a business that I tried to start in Laguna beach with artists. And just real quick recap because I think this is gonna make your point. Um, there’s something called Artel edge that I did with business partner and we actually just shelved it after a month because we realized the flaw, the flaw was we were trying to work with artists and even screening the best of the best. We got down to three and we found that they cherished the view of themselves as a starving artist and we’re sabotaging themselves and we’re incapable of actually hustling and actually just killing it and, and succeeding. And they were, they were their own problem. And so we ended up not trying to change them. We just kind of,

Christian: 00:38:23 no, because it’s because, and this is the thing and I love what you say in trying to change them, but actually it’s, it’s not impossible, but it takes a lot of consciousness and the right strategies to change identities and easy because this is why it works. Because if I look myself as someone being in depth, if that’s my identity, that’s harder to change them. Change my plan. Yeah, and I just had to look at my habits. What were my habits? Because the results I was there, it was all the results of my daily and weekly habits at that time and it’s this thing in, by doing it mentally, you’re able to disconnect your emotions from it and it’s so much easier to change a plan compared to changing yourself. It’s a little bit like having this friend who has issues with in his relationship or in his bishop business.

Christian: 00:39:13 When you see someone else with issues, then it’s easy to solve. When it’s your business, then you’re thinking about it for days and weeks and you’re not moving forward and you just keep going in your head. And this is what I always call is like, you know, we can’t see the picture when we inside the frame. Yep. And this is another reason why actually journaling is the best way to become conscious of what are my beliefs, what am I doing? What is my picture is journaling is the best way. Because what you do is you subconsciously go from a first person perspective of where you experienced your stress, where your experience, your emotions to a second person perspective, a higher perspective in observing in where am I going, what am I doing? And this is again, it’s going from a to B. When you are clear about where do I want to go, where am I now?

Christian: 00:39:58 And that second is the hardest of everything. Then you are able to get yourself going. And this is what makes the difference between the top 2% and the others because this is what they do all the time. They just ask themselves every time at the start of the day, where am I now? Where am I going? How do I get there? And they do this every day because George, you know, life changes, the world changes. You move from Amsterdam to Lisbon, your life changes. You get a new girlfriend, your life changes, you become a dad, you know, things happen so easily, so quickly, you win a million, your life changes. But what I found more fascinating is, and this is when you study the brain and beliefs and mindset and there are so many research, um, reports about people winning a lottery. And I think I’ve shared this with you the first time when we met at [inaudible], he as well as in 90 over 90% of the people who win the lottery, when in five years time they lose it.

Christian: 00:41:02 So just think about it. People go every week, they dreaming about becoming a millionaire. They go every week buying this lottery tickets. Then they are a millionaire and they’re sabotaging themselves. Why? Because there were not a millionaire before they got the million. And this is the key thing. What I realized and what I’ve implemented in my whole program of implementation, transformation, sin. If I run to run a marathon under tree hours because that’s what I have to do to become a top 2% marathon runner. First I have to think about who do I need to become. Because when you look at a marathon and just, it’s really fun to just study the lost the people in the last few miles because you see people dying just going nowhere. And why? Because they tried something and they were not the runner which was able to master the marathon.

Christian: 00:41:54 And this is the sad thing and this is the main thing and a lot of people, they just go for the stretching and they see if they can make it or not just fight with ego and then they’re full back again to where they always been. And if you really want to grow, if you really want to progress, and this is when you are starting your business or when you are a digital nomad. If you want to be a successful digital nomad, then be the digital nomad before you really get to the point. So you have to grow yourself. So this is where my whole program is about is how do I grow myself as fast as possible. So I start thinking like a top marathon runner. So what happens is I start creating the habits of the top marathon runner as our have our, our fingering leads through our habits and our behavior and I start taking the actions of the top marathon runner and then the results become like being a top marathon runner.

Christian: 00:42:44 And funny enough, when I get the results, my brain would say I am because you get confirmed that what you think of. So, and this is the number one thing I’ve learned and of course this is from Tony Robbins is in you got the school youtube video where he’s with Frank Kern as in this cycle. This is the cycle of life. But it’s so what’s the difference between the people who are able to transform themselves and the people who are not the main people are able to see themselves already. They have a clear vision of who they have to become a and where they are now and who they are right now. And then what strategies will bring me from a to B to become that person. But, but this is the main, main, main thing in what people have to do is in, if I set a goal and doesn’t matter if it’s running a marathon and you first have to become and in your head and whether to get back to the guys who have Nike, the marathon runners.

Christian: 00:43:43 So Kipchoge is now actually training for another attempt of running the marathon on the two hours. And it’s funny when you see him now, and I think they do a a say a few interviews on this now on the youtube is in, you now hear him saying, I know it’s possible. I’ve been two hours, 20 seconds. I was 20 seconds off. I already felt it, but I wasn’t sure. Now I know what I have to do, what I have to change. And this is how we learn. And um, you know, this is the differences and now he understands the context of being able to do it. So now he knows who he needs to become and now he creates a strategy to get there. And I’m pretty sure he will find this way to, to go there. But yeah, it’s, it’s still an incredible, because two hours is in, I’m working really hard not to run on the three hours.

Christian: 00:44:33 And even that’s it. You know, most people that take about three hours, 40 minutes, four hours, cause you’ve run, I did a half marathon and I want to say it took me like three hours. So you did it in three hours. It was somewhere three to three and half hours I think. Wow. What’s the Haley? Uh, no, it was in Phoenix. It was the pf Chang’s half marathon. But it’s, it’s interesting to see as in, in if you still for me is in, I never ran before. I only did a few 10 ks in my life, you know, and right now we’re seeing, so I have to be able to run a 10 k race in 38 minutes to be able to do a sub three hour marathon. I have to run a health marathon in an hour, 25 minutes. And I’ve never ran a health marathon when I started it.

Christian: 00:45:19 I’ve now done a half marathon [inaudible] run here in Portugal, which was a three hour run because that’s, you know, if you think about where I am now and maybe you’ve seen this on this prose, I think marathon running or running towards a health Maritain, I believe that’s one of the best things we can do to teach us ourselves to skills of how does our brain work, how does our focus works for how, and that’s what we’re doing now with the project is in shooting the documentary about my journey and the online courses, so people, we help people to run health marathons and marathons and showed them this is what happens in wire. Does procrastination come from what happens in your brain when it happens? Where does a resilience come from? Where does grit come from? How far or actually how bad is it when you are pushing outside your comfort zone?

Christian: 00:46:07 Because the only thing what happens is you get injured and tired. How can you flow towards your goals? These are the things you want to learn. These are life skills, like soft skills. We have to teach people and you have to understand because when you are mastering these skills, then becoming a successful digital nomad is way easier. It’s way easier. So that’s, that’s for me is in um, yeah, so running is for me a really amazing thing to, to show you, you know, because you learn a lot about where am I capable of where I’m an up. And for me when I started, the first thing I realized to do was I actually have two. I followed that running was a bad thing, you know? And when you God meaning like not good for your body or no. And when you see the research, 50% of the people or 50% of the runners get every year injured.

Christian: 00:46:58 It’s actually, it’s the most dangerous sports in the world. And when do you get injured when you’re not imbalanced? But that was my biggest thing is in, okay, running a lot is possible. So that’s what I’m going to do, right? I said this big goal and what am I going to do for linear growth? It’s just I run today, tomorrow I’ll run 2% faster and I keep doing this for six, eight months. And then I getting there. But that’s absolutely not the way because when I started to study like the guys which are running fast, the number one thing day are instead of being good runners are way better recovers. And I that was, so what I started to do is studying some way, some guy and I started the study Ryan Hole, who is to foster this marathon runner from the states. He run Boston in two oh two oh four and he’s a white guy because they say like, oh we have physical differences.

Christian: 00:47:50 So for me, seeing a wide guy running really fast, I fought, if I just study what he’s doing, how we focus on that, not might come close. But so I started to study Ryan Holt and to see what are the things doing it and what he was teaching me. This was where we were going. So when I was starting studying Ryan Holt, what I realized that actually the main thing he did was not training hard, but he told me to actually train softer, slower. I had to run slower, I had to recover better and it was more as in if you don’t recover you will get injured. So you have to, so and it’s, it’s the Ying Yang, it’s the balance. But this is why you see a lot of people getting injured. It’s because when they start running and start chasing big goals. Were you injured when you’re training for the marathon?

Sean Tierney: 00:48:35 Well I was just marathon running. My knees hurt like hell after it. Um, I was, I was at that point running heel strike, which is not the right way to run. So since I’ve since switched to the forefront, like minimalist shoe style and it’s just a way easier on your joints I found. Yeah, I met on, my knees were blown for the weekend. Imagine running a full marathon cause I didn’t want to ever run that far again.

Christian: 00:48:58 I can’t imagine them because it was so painful. Yeah. All right. And, but it’s interesting and when you look at the habits, and so this was the number one thing is in studying in first was, okay, my belief is can I get run a marathon? Then I had to believe that I was able to go from my current position because this is the reason why people buy online courses. And you recognize this with your business and any digital nomads selling courses, noses is in most people, they sign up, they don’t complete it. And we all, we all have these books on the shelves and they say about 10% of the people are only when they sign up for an online course, they complete it. And then 2% of the people who completed will implement it. Yes. So the first belief for me was to, to focus on a, the first belief was to that it was possible to run, but the second belief from Eve was supposed to whatever was possible for me to do it.

Christian: 00:49:48 And how I started to do is I started to focus on people as in googling, because that’s a great thing with Internet. So we think that me running from where I am to running a sub three hour marathon is impossible. But then I started to Google on it and I find this one guy, his name is Alex Pharaoh and he headed documentary where he was overweight it, he finished the marathon, but he was smoking, he was drinking and he was way worse than where I was. And he saw like, Hey, the Olympics are coming up in London and he was living in London or in the UK. And he said, I’m going to train to qualify for the Olympics for the marathon. And he just had two years and he showed the documentary about that. And what’s interesting and is that he was able to get from I think four and a half hours to two hours, 30 minutes in just 18 more or less, 18 months.

Christian: 00:50:41 So he made a massive shift. So he showed me that it actually was physical possible to really make a big shift. So Devil’s my second belief I had to learn and to teach myself isn’t okay. It’s possible for me to transfer. And when I saw him when I found him, and this is the main thing of role models, we always look at role models who already got the results we desire. You know you’ve seen them on Instagram or you air them on the podcast. But the main thing we have to find is find role models who used to be in a situation where we are now [inaudible] and because if they’ve been, you know, you see a lot of personal trainers and these personal trainers, they, you know, they are really fit, really slim. They’ve never been overweighted so they don’t know how to deal with the emotions of being overweighted and running or training, you know, they don’t feel the stress of, Oh, I’ve never completed a marathon.

Christian: 00:51:29 I even don’t know if I’m able to complete a marathon. So how, and this was what happened with between me and Ryan as well, for him, ry of running was his thing. I always felt like I’m not a runner, I’m not an athlete. So I had to start believing that I was an athlete. And the real change for me, and this was because I was studying people in first on speak, because that’s the hardest thing I have to be focusing on. Can I really run a marathon with 43 hours in a row? First of all, can I run three hours in a row? Secondly, can I run for three hours? Can I run a marathon, the distance of 42 K or 26 miles or a and can I run for three hours at 14 ks an hour? And that’s, you know, all of these beliefs I had to do.

Christian: 00:52:14 So what I started to do is I’m, I’ve been to Cape Town and I surrounded myself at ultra trail runners and this is another thing which is really exciting and game changer for people is make things small. How do you make things small? Because this is what happens is when you set a big goal, we always feel small because we’re not there yet. The goal is so big, I feel small. How likely am I to take action? You know, you’re only fighting and struggling. And this is what you see with a lot of people when they set the goal to become a successful digital nomad. I say, Shit, I’m not there yet. I feel really bad about myself. So what I started to do is instead of my goal was, is running a marathon on the three hours I started to surround myself with, because we already ever talked to five people we spend most time with with ultra trail runners.

Christian: 00:53:00 And it’s funny because then I was in Cape Town with guys not just running flat cause I was just running flat who running through the mountains and they were completing runs 400 ks, hundred miles. And they were doing about four or five marathons a week in when they were training for these races. And I thought, wow. And then you see the people doing it and then your brains, you know, your brain says, actually it must be, and now, and this is how I transformed myself and this is how I transform my identity. But I still focus on the strategy.

Sean Tierney: 00:53:32 So, okay. So just to recap, so we’re talking, the process here is to pick a goal, to believe that it’s possible to back that belief up by surrounding yourself with other people who substantiate it. Who, who, who show you that it’s possible for them. So then you start to believe, Hey, I’m starting where they started. So it is possible for me. Yeah,

Christian: 00:53:52 it’s important that you fail. So you find people who are already doing what you want to do and even are already doing more than what you do because you become the people where you spend the most time with. So if you become 20% of them, you still reach your goal. Yep. In mindset because I had to believe that a marathon is not far. Now spending time with ultra for Toronto absolutely works. And what you were saying in a, when you find role models, the thing is what else with them? I felt so bad about myself and this is what happens. You listen to the podcast and you start feeling better about yourself because all of these people are ahead of you and you need a good self esteem. And this is what happened with me and my framework from going broke to getting to back to the living and being back alive was I was surrounding myself itself made millionaires and ends up preneurs and I felt so bad about it.

Christian: 00:54:40 And how was I able to deal with it by teaching others who are behind me. And this is what I call the circle of life. So if you want to grow, spend time for 3% of your time or 33% a little rural, spend 33% of your time with people who are where you want to be. Spend 33% of your time with people who are aware you are right now and in the same process. So you know you’re not stupid and 33% of your time you spend with people who are beyond. So I’m now running here in Lisbon with a group of people who are running for the first time. And I teach them a few key principles, all the things I learned from the top marathon runners and ultra trail runners. I just give back to other people. And why? Because when I teach, I feel good about myself.

Christian: 00:55:23 So the more I teach, the better I feel about myself, the more time I can spend again with the other guys. Yup, and this is, it’s a nice circle to go through, but the main thing is in the recap, it’s important to find a role model who used to be in your specific situation because this is what I’ve seen when I was with the death collects agencies or with the the public services in the Netherlands. I went to them and said, okay, I’m in a bad situation, and then they were giving me advice, but they never been out of debt. They never gone through the process. As it said, they said, okay, I’m 50,000 years, this was an early stage, 50,000 years in debt. How can you get me out of it? And they said, wow, that’s a lot of money. And then I said the same thing to auto ends up preneurs into other millionaires.

Christian: 00:56:09 And they said, oh, sliver. Yeah, that’s nothing. 50,000 euros in. I see you. You can grow, you can learn. If you keep doing what you’re doing right now, probably in two years she will be able to make enough money to get that easy out. So and so and isn’t it interesting and now you have the same situation and how some people from their mindset, their beliefs has looking at it and say it’s impossible and other people are looking at it and say, actually it’s easy. And this is why I went to Alex Farrow because when I started with my project I was part of group who were old training for a sub three hour marathon and these guys were already, that already completed five, six marathons or they were already false. They’re already try it leads. They already did a lot of things and this is a really nice thing to learn or to share with about mentors.

Christian: 00:56:58 So my trainer, he was the national coach of electro runners in the Netherlands. So then you think and he already helped over 400 marathon runners to reach goals, cow foot. He must be good, right? That’s what you want. But then health way, I realized that actually this guy asked him, how many marathons did you complete in your life? He only did one and he didn’t at four hours. And why was I asking him? Because I felt like how he was sabotaging my growth because he was looking at my, and he was looking at my stats on Strava and he said, ah, I think Ho of weight. He said, I think you might not be able to do it. And this was my first attempt because that’s, this was my first attempt for the marathon, but unfortunately I got injured and this, you know, but the challenge is so complex and this is why I’ve done it because it’s so complex.

Christian: 00:57:51 Like if I’m able to make myself towards this goal sub three hour marathon, then I know I’m able to teach everyone about it. But what happened with him was he really didn’t believe that it was possible for me because he never knew how a three hour marathon looks like, how fast you can grow because he just did his marathon with his own beliefs. And you’ve never been through the PRA. The transformation. But that’s his limiting belief, not yours. It is. But this is what we do with a lot of coaches, with a lot of mentors. Like if you really want to grow fast, just don’t listen to business coaches who’d never been in your situation. Just listen to the digital nomad Experis actually who used to be and in your cases and you had a specific situation when you started with your business, just start to focus more and more on those people because you can help them best because you know how they feel emotionally and how hard it is to create your business next to your job or I don’t know how you started. Right? But it’s the um, yeah. So it’s really important to find this rural model we used to be in your current situation and who had been through the transformation

Sean Tierney: 00:58:59 like yourself, the role model it sounds like, and the apprentice. So you’re young, you’re simultaneously looking for like the mentor who’s above you but the apprentice who’s below you, it sounds like. And that’s a critical, actually, it’s a really interesting insight that that piece of it brings you up. The 33% rule, right?

Christian: 00:59:15 Yeah. No, it’s, it’s a game changer because it’s when my brain gets, we do a lot brain scans right now when we’re going through this, and if I get a training, a session, let’s say I have to go on the trek, or when I spend time with Ryan Holt, my brain just says, I’m so small, I’m not fast enough. And even me now running here on Monday, there’s one guy in my group. He’s way false than I am. Every time I run with him, I feel bad about myself. But when I look at the Strava results over time, I see actually myself, and this is why celebrating your little wins is so important, but I’m progressing. But I feel bad while I’m progressing. And this happens with a lot of people and this is consciousness. And when you start teaching to other, that’s the moment when you get conscious about where you are, what you’ve learned, how much progress you’ve made, and how to feel good about yourself. And it’s the key thing.

Sean Tierney: 01:00:05 Yeah. This is something I’ve thought about, uh, many times is like how do we form resistance to this tendency to constantly elevate the bar and we’re constantly anchoring to higher and higher expectations that then make us feel inadequate as we approach those. And so it’s like this ever, it’s almost like I picture like a, you know, dangling a carrot with like a thing on your head in front of you and then it’s perpetually out in front of you. So you’re always just PR, you know, constantly behind it. So how do we break that cycle and start to realize objective, like yeah, we are progressing and feel good about that absolute progress versus this constant perceived in our adequacy. And it’s,

Christian: 01:00:43 yeah. So when you look at the brain, you have like the reticular activation system in your brain and this is the one, what’s what you experienced best is when you buy a new car, suddenly you see the car everywhere or you order an Uber and it’s like this availability, this Toyota. And suddenly you see Toyota’s everywhere. They were there, but you didn’t see that they were there when before you got the the car. And this is the same thing. When you know where you’re going and this is how people form or choose to bring differently than others. When you’ve got total clarity where to go and even on specific levels, then you’re able to find the opportunity because your brain recognizes the opportunities. So it’s important and need to go somewhere. But it’s what happens is because our brain doesn’t like pain, it’s always focused on this carrot, the carrot, you know, me and the carrot and not able to get to the carrot.

Christian: 01:01:34 That pain is what I feel. I don’t like pain. So I start focusing on pain. How do you deal with it better is to focus on how do I grow, how do I progress? And this is what I think what a lot of mindfulness teachers can improve when they teaching mindfulness. When you want to live in the present, then think about where do you live right now in the present, in context of where you’re coming from. So you know how to grow. And we’ve done this research, um, with a few guys and I love it, is they were focusing on dopamine levels with the neuroimaging. And what happened is that we asked people to focus on where are you now and where do you come from? And what happens is when we ask people to, where were you two years ago? And it’s an interesting thing to think about now, where was I two years ago?

Christian: 01:02:24 When you focus on that, then you think like, shit, I’ve grown. Actually this is going, I’m going well you know, if you see what you’ve done, all the work you’ve done, but when you, because subconsciously you always focused on the carrot and yet this is consciousness. So there’s little 5% of consciousness we have. We have to ask ourselves two questions to ask this conscious question over and over again of stow in where we’re coming from. And the more we do it, the more risk we are willing to take and the more likely we are to succeed. It’s a simple habit and this is why gratitude again, why does gratitude works? People are here. The gratitude fee. Well, what do we do when I ask myself where am I grateful for it? Just asking the question releases dopamine as well. And this is the beauty when we start studying the brain better and why I’m teaching, we’re creatures of habits.

Christian: 01:03:10 How the brain works. Because when you understand how these chemicals work, then you know where it’s all about in life. Because nature has, or the universe has giving us this system for a reason. So when you ask yourself, where am I grateful for your happiness, chemicals get released, but what you’re doing, you make a list of where you are right now. And instead of focusing on the pain of what’s missing in your life so far between you and your Karen, you’re focusing on all the things you have actually to get to watch the Garren. Cause if I ask right now, where am I grateful for? It’s like, oh, it’s my training. It’s the lessons I’ve learned. It’s the mistakes I’ve made. You know, they were not mistakes, but the experiences that got a, the friendships I’ve made, the systems, I’ve built my shoes, you know, my partnerships, my sponsorships, living in Lisbon, living in between the hills because he’s no, it makes me wait.

Christian: 01:04:01 Foster than living in the Netherlands is in you. When you ask yourself where am I grateful for, you actually get conscious about where are you right now with all the resources you have. And it’s funny because now you can make your plan again in how to go from a to B because you need, now I have the list of all the things you can use to go from a to B. And that’s a good thing about asking yourself where are you grateful for? Because you make the list and you focus on the experiences you’ve been through in the last two years, five years, 10 years, and what makes you realize that you are way bigger than you used to be? Because we have, when you study the brain and is when we focus on how we’ve grown over time, then we get rewarded with happiness chemicals.

Christian: 01:04:42 So you know what I believe is the law of nature is what stops growing starts dying. And this is why it actually is a good thing to grow. But we have to be conscious that we only use goals like me. And this is, I had to learn this the hard way and this is the beauty of my putting myself in this, in this stress test experiment being my own Guinea pig. And so I got injured the first time when I started with my project and I was there during the routed and marathon and all my buddies you, we started with a group of 14 and 11 of them were running the rotted American and I was looking at them and I visualized so many times, that moment of me being there, being strong enough, being fit enough and they were running and the only thing I could do at the start was crying as in Shit, I felt so bad about myself. And this is what happens to let you set your goal. You don’t hit your goal. But if you focus on how does this goal make me grow, who do I become towards my goal, then you don’t feel bad about yourself. You always feel gross. You only reason why you set goals. You direct your focus towards that way. Yeah.

Sean Tierney: 01:05:55 Yeah. So that’s my takeaway here is like this idea, going back to our analogy with the, it’s really redirecting your focus from this fixed space in front of you that is always going to be out in front of you towards more like a second person view from outside or third person view it from outside looking at you relative to where you were and seeing that notion of progress.

Christian: 01:06:15 Absolutely. Absolutely. And it’s this shift in teaching people this skill going from first person to second person. That’s a real game changer. Like would you Orford person that’s a real game change and if you are able to become conscious how you focus when you feel bad because when you feel bad you always focus for the first person.

Sean Tierney: 01:06:34 Do you, so I do the gratitude journal practice in the morning and something, and this is just a weird thought, but does knowing that gratitude like this is hacking in a sense that knowing that you can make use of gratitude to make yourself feel better, does that then undermine like I get the voice that starts to ask like, oh, are you just using this as a tool to make yourself feel better? And you’re basically abusing gratitude and it’s using gratitude. You know what I mean? It starts to like you start to second guess what you’re doing and that is like this creeping. Like it’s just an insidious creeping voice. But if you can forget about it and just truly be grateful, then you feel amazing. But then it’s when like you start to think about like, oh, am I just hocking my brain right now?

Christian: 01:07:17 Actually you are. And it’s a good thing. Yeah. Actually it is a good thing because it’s by doing it is, it makes you conscious about where your life is and you can celebrate that. So it’s the two things in it’s, so one is really, really important is to shift your focus, direct your focus so you can focus subconsciously. If you think about our pain neurons in our brain is six times as much as the one of reward neurons. So we have to ask ourselves, where do we reward ourselves for? And we have to teach ourselves in a conscious way six times as much, almost as in where am I grateful for? What am I celebrating? And this is how you get momentum. This is how you get flow. Because then at one point, if you keep doing this, keep doing this, keep doing this, you start doing it subconsciously and you will feel less pain on your journey.

Christian: 01:08:06 Because every time the pain comes up, you feel bad about yourself. You’re just, it’s a good thing to abuse gratitude because what happens is this is, um, what I love is when I started to learn about the brain, I actually became more spiritual because every fall that has a different frequency and we have different brainwave states. And when you go into gratitude, what you will see is that actually the frequency is the closest to flow. So there are a few brainwave states so you have better a Alpha Theta and Delta Delta is the hypnosis which we have when we are in hypnosis, when we are a kid between zero and seven and we just got conditioned and by our environment between uh, Theda and all fall, what happens is that’s where flow happens. What’s interesting is is you better. That’s when you are active. When you’re in Alpha, that’s when you’re in the creative and the flow and but when you are in high better, that’s when you are struggling.

Christian: 01:09:05 Scarcity did not enough. I’m not good enough, I’m not busy enough. And what you really want to do is you want to start controlling your brain frequency and how do you control your brain frequency by shifting your focus from the pain of where am I now and where am I not yet to where I am now and where do I go, where am I coming from or where am I grateful for it? That’s what happens when you, when you ask yourself where am I grateful for? Actually what you’re doing is you’re just shifting your brain frequency because by shifting your focus and that’s exactly where you are because what happens, and I didn’t know, do you know Jody Spencer? I heard the name but I don’t know. He is absolutely fabulous in the things but it’s a in what he does and what he shares and it’s really beautiful.

Christian: 01:09:52 He’s done a lot of research of how do we get in the real flow state. Cause what happens is when we start studying the brain and we see people in all going from better back to all fun Theda state at one point they go even in a foster state. So there’s first slow down. That’s what we do with meditation. You go to this Alpha or this t. Dot. Which is the deep sleep state. And then at one point our brain goes to a super fast they, which is the Gammas state and this is the moment where we actually are able to connect with the universe where we are connect with bigger things in life. This is where we feel one where we feel whole, where you’re totally one and this is what you see when you’re really flow. When you’re experienced to run as high.

Christian: 01:10:37 The thing is is first you start running and you have this pain and then at the moment you are able to give you to shift your focus from running instead of focusing in what’s not working to while this working, where am I grateful for? You start relaxing, your brain frequency actually drops back to Alpha and at one point this is how you get in flow and how you can achieve to run as high as in by focusing on how can I relax while running. And then you see that actually at one point your brain goes to Gammas state and you see really active government brainwaves through your brain when you are in this happiness. Totally flow being one would a will where you know, which is amazing to be. That’s awesome man. Um,

Sean Tierney: 01:11:22 well we are over the one hour mark. So I’m going to break into the last part of this interview, which is a, this is like rapid fire tactical questions and I call it the breakdown. So are you ready for the break? Down? Break down. Okay. What is one book that has profoundly affected you?

Christian: 01:11:43 I would say to, I thought speed. Wealth of TRF. Aker was amazing. So he’s teaching and how to start a business in three, four or how to get a million dollar business in three or four years. Speed wealth is speed. Wealth, yeah. It’s just pdf. Just Google for the pdf and it’s there. Okay. We’ll link that in the show notes. A, what is one tool or hack that saves you time? Headaches. Money. The number one. Yeah, it’s enough. I’ve got plenty. Of course now, the number one, what I would say, and this is what I loved the most and is there are different ways of meditation and from each visualization. So what I do is every day I visualize the moment that I’ve completed my marathon or that I am where I’m with my business or as a speaker or whatever. But it’s visualizing this every day. I used a gladiator Elysium. Now we’re free music for seven minutes. And just getting into that point every time again and again, that’s the most effective habit and it’s not maybe what saves me time today, but it does actually because it makes me, it gives me the priorities of where I want to go, but it really rewrites my brain over a long time. And on one point you start believing that it’s possible for you. You feel the emotions are already and then you get attracted to it.

Sean Tierney: 01:12:54 Awesome. What about, what is one piece of music that speaks to you or, or a musical artist?

Christian: 01:13:01 Yeah, for me, this is the, now we’re free and it’s interesting. So this is the, one of the songs from the gladiator and it’s sung by Lisa Jarrett and she, uh, she created it and this, this weird language and she used to sing this language for, to communicate with her higher self. And I don’t know, every time when I do it, I feel like I have a communication with me and my future self and I love it. Awesome. Well,

Sean Tierney: 01:13:26 Linkedin, Spotify to that. And what song? Um, okay. This is a curve ball. I’ve never asked this question but it’s a really good question by this Guy Peter Teal, the guy who wrote zero to one. Um, and so if you need to think about it for a second, take, take your time. But it is what important truth. Do Very few people agree with you on?

Christian: 01:13:48 Wow. The main thing is that what we do is subconscious. 95% of what we do subconscious. So most people believe that it’s all conscious. And you’re saying that 95% of what we do is all subconscious. Absolutely is how we get conditioned in the first seven years. And we, you know, when you take it from an higher perspective, it’s that we going, this is how we got conditioned. We have to learn our life lessons as a soul. And then in a later phase we have to develop our consciousness why things are happening to us or for us actually and how we are growing as a soul. So I think it’s the truth. Maybe actually might be growth that we are born to grow. I think that’s there. The more we grow, the more we can contribute. That’s the key thing where people come back. To me

Sean Tierney: 01:14:34 that’s the, that’s the key. Yeah. Cool. Alright, last question. What one piece of advice, if you had a time machine to go back to your 20 year old self before all the stuff happened with the debt and all that, like what one piece of advice would you give yourself?

Christian: 01:14:50 So we are now going about 30 years back. Fair team for 13 years. It’s interesting because what I feel is that all the bad things that happen, they happen for a reason. And actually those are older reasons that help make me contribute now to others. It’s my gift. It’s my thing now because I mustered because I had to go through it. Right. So I would say surround yourself with better people with room with more. Just be more conscious about who you spend time with. Yeah, I think yeah. Or learn more from the people you spend more time with at that point. I think that’s the, that might be good because if I look back like that moment, I really, I didn’t realize how cool or what they were doing or how much I could learn or what questions I could ask for them. So I think does, I think that will be, yeah. The main thing, just be more conscious about who you spend time with.

Sean Tierney: 01:15:47 Right on. Well, Christian, that’s the, the interview. Uh, how do people get in touch with you if they want to connect on social media or what’s the best way to, to find out what you’re up to? Linkedin is always good for if they want to contact me directly or otherwise, creatures of habits with the extra s okay. That’s cool. Cool. We will link all that in the show notes. Thanks so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me.