Ep42 Christian Ray Flores - Shaking Sharks: The Secret to Entrepreneurial Success

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:06:04
Suzanne Taylor-King
awareness of the past connections to your current career,

00:00:06:04 - 00:00:09:23
Suzanne Taylor-King
that's what makes the pivot so magical,

00:00:10:00 - 00:00:12:08
Suzanne Taylor-King
is helping people see that connection.

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Christian Ray Flores
And you're not a statistic.

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Christian Ray Flores
You're a human being with with insights, gifts, passions,

00:00:18:01 - 00:00:22:18
Christian Ray Flores
that equip you very uniquely for certain things. And you don't even pay attention to that.

00:00:22:19 - 00:00:49:01
Suzanne Taylor-King
Hey, hey. Welcome to a podcast where dreams meet. Determination and success is just around the corner. I'm your host, Suzanne Taylor King. And I'm here to help you unlock the full potential of your business and your life. Welcome to Unlock Your Way with SDK. Let's unlock your path to success together.

00:00:49:01 - 00:01:04:09
Suzanne Taylor-King
Good morning. Good morning everyone. We are here for another episode of Unlock Your Way with STK and we are here with the incredible Christian Ray Flores. Welcome, Christian.

00:01:04:08 - 00:01:05:03
Christian Ray Flores
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

00:01:05:08 - 00:01:24:01
Suzanne Taylor-King
STK is on the house. You're so welcome. You are a coach, a rockstar, a branding expert. All these incredible things. And your profile really stood out to me. Tell us a little bit about what you do.

00:01:24:02 - 00:02:01:16
Christian Ray Flores
I, I am professionally ADHD, so I do several things. I think the two make it. Exactly. I mean, it seems to be going around. I, I I'm a performance coach. That's one of the things that I do. What basically helps people who are really purpose driven professionals and they want to be at the peak of their calling, the at the peak of their industry, at the peak of their life consists entirely forever.

00:02:01:18 - 00:02:41:19
Christian Ray Flores
That's so it's it's a very specific group of people and type of person, I guess. And I also have a media company called Third Drive Media. And we do a little bit of a broader scope of things. We are essentially a digital media company, but we do brand strategy and executing on it, which is sort of a an interesting combo because we help our clients who are either nonprofit leaders or tech founders, startup founders, or just personal brand people to refine their messaging, their positioning, the very essence of who they are so they can stand out.

00:02:41:21 - 00:03:06:00
Christian Ray Flores
But also we have a great, incredible team, award winning team that executes on this. So this is photo, video, web brand, logo, the whole thing. So those are the two main things I do. And then for philanthropy we have an after school academy in Mozambique in Africa called the Sand Academy. And we help children in very, very poor areas to get out of poverty.

00:03:06:00 - 00:03:19:21
Christian Ray Flores
And it's a small project but highly focused, not just on sort of alleviating poverty, but eliminating poverty for the lives of those of those kids who basically have nothing. They can even reach the bottom rung of the economic ladder, essentially.

00:03:19:22 - 00:03:52:15
Suzanne Taylor-King
Well, wow. One thing you said really stands out to me, and we'll get to the charity work because I believe that's important. But the thing about execution, I notice the number one issue with the entrepreneurs that I work with is that they can have all this theory and the coaching in the world, but if they're not executing and doing all of those things, they remain stuck.

00:03:52:15 - 00:04:06:03
Suzanne Taylor-King
And they wonder why. Program after program, coach after coach, why they're not moving forward. Is that one of the reasons why execution was important to you?

00:04:06:03 - 00:04:29:22
Christian Ray Flores
Yes. I think generally speaking, in coaching and in in sort of personal brand building, it's sort of the same, the same issue. You have to sort of absorb, you have to learn the things that you need to learn, expand your skillset. But that doesn't stick. Right. So we can read, you know, you have all these famous posts on, like, I've read 100 books this year.

00:04:29:23 - 00:04:55:22
Christian Ray Flores
This is my top five books. Yeah, I know for a fact that that person can be a great media person, but 100 books you're not going to be able to absorb at all, not even close to it. Right? So okay, great. Grabs attention, that sort of thing. But I would say both on the media side and on the coaching side are my emphasis is on massive action, and it really is.

00:04:55:22 - 00:05:01:23
Christian Ray Flores
It's just you actually can't really learn without doing. You can't.

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Suzanne Taylor-King
Oh yeah.

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Christian Ray Flores
You can listen. You can hear, you can say, you man, preach it. You know, you can say all those things. You can be inspired for a minute and a half, you know, and, you can even draw a plan if you don't act on it. You actually have not learned that thing. Yeah. You haven't.

00:05:19:16 - 00:05:49:19
Suzanne Taylor-King
You haven't I, I love that so much because I think that most learning comes from screwing something up, doing it wrong, trying something and it not working. Like when I look back over the last 35 years and I think, what are the biggest lessons? What are the most impactful things? It was all from failure. It was all from not knowing something, doing it anyway.

00:05:49:19 - 00:06:18:06
Suzanne Taylor-King
It didn't work and I had to go back and reiterate or redo or tweak something. And then I think that so many people are scared to do that, that they don't take that first action step. So I read a ton of books too, but I decide on one action step per book, and even if it's something small, one little action step can make a huge difference.

00:06:18:08 - 00:06:41:19
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah, I think so, I think so I, I use this, analogy sort of from my backstory. I grew up in four different countries. Three continents by age seven, which is really unusual. I think, and what I learned from that is sort of this ability, the skill that was almost like it was really more for survival.

00:06:41:19 - 00:07:08:00
Christian Ray Flores
I had to learn very quickly. Yeah. So I became a really good learner because I wanted to fit in. Right. So you go from country to country to country and people look different. They sound different. The languages are different. The intonations, the body language, all of it is different. And you have to sort of absorb it. And what I learned from that is this technique that I now help teach people.

00:07:08:00 - 00:07:17:23
Christian Ray Flores
I can I can teach you right now. It's very easy. Oh yeah. It's yeah, it's called the it's called immersive learning. So to give you an example, did you learn a foreign language in high school by chance?

00:07:18:04 - 00:07:19:10
Suzanne Taylor-King
Yes.

00:07:19:12 - 00:07:39:20
Christian Ray Flores
They do you speak in. No. No. Okay. So the reason why you don't speak it now is because you didn't immersive learn. You just intellectually learn. Right. But if you were, you were learning that language by moving to that country in six months, just six months, you would be still speaking it. Now, as a matter of fact, yes.

00:07:39:22 - 00:08:04:03
Christian Ray Flores
And the reason for that is because immersive learning has three elements that are really important. One, it's that it's daily, like it's continuous, right? It doesn't stop. It's not once a week, it's not three hours a week, you know. Second, it's interactive and it's experiential, experimental right. Yeah. So that's sort of what you said. And.

00:08:04:05 - 00:08:25:16
Christian Ray Flores
People think, oh kids are great with languages. That's why they're learning. No, no, no, it's not because you're a kid. It's because you have immersive learning going on. Right. So if you want to build anything good in life, you can write a book, you become an artist, you want to build a business, develop this new product, all of those things require more than the core competency.

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Christian Ray Flores
All of them.

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Suzanne Taylor-King
Yeah.

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Christian Ray Flores
Because you need to learn whatever editing, sound production people, people skills across the board, like even you, your core skill is not enough, right? Marketing, the list goes on and on and on. Anybody who wants to build anything needs to learn more stuff than just the core thing that they do.

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Suzanne Taylor-King
Yes.

00:08:47:10 - 00:09:05:08
Christian Ray Flores
And we all go, well, it's just not like it's not me. I just want to I just want to be a writer. So don't write books. And magically, people all over the world will buy those books and will live happily ever after. And I'll live in this mansion, you know, and all of that, you know. So we think those things about everything, right?

00:09:05:10 - 00:09:23:16
Christian Ray Flores
Oh, I just want to I just want to. I just want to treat people, you know? I just want to be this healer. I want to, develop a product and I can't even tell this pros can change the world, but I don't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening. People just don't don't see it. And, you know, like, all of those things, right?

00:09:23:18 - 00:09:43:05
Christian Ray Flores
So we all lack skills essentially. That's what it is, right? And people give up and people don't live out their dreams. Immersive learning is being a very realistic person about the core skills. They're very realistic about the things you suck got. You know, pick a thing that you are. It's essential for your success long term. Let's say it's marketing, right?

00:09:43:05 - 00:09:48:15
Christian Ray Flores
Marketing is sort of a for sale sale. Sales is just a massive obstacle in people's lives.

00:09:48:17 - 00:09:49:12
Suzanne Taylor-King
Yes.

00:09:49:13 - 00:10:10:12
Christian Ray Flores
You pick sales and you go, okay, I'm going to figure out sales. How do you learn sales? I you go, you can say I'm bad at sales. I'm not a salesperson. That is all lies. Completely lies, right? What you do is, is pick an authority and sales or a book and sales are of course, and sales are coach and sales and you do something every day.

00:10:10:13 - 00:10:26:11
Christian Ray Flores
You learn something every day. You experiment with that something every single day, and you get feedback every day. You do that for literally 20 minutes a day. You know that theory about the 10,000 hours of mastery thing? If you break down that time in a year, you'll have to do 10,000 hours one year.

00:10:26:13 - 00:10:50:22
Suzanne Taylor-King
I love I love this so much because I always pick a topic that I'm going to learn about, and I go deep on that. Only that topic for 30 days. So filter my inbox. All my reading is on that topic. If there's a video to watch, it's only that topic and I just need a little second brain for myself.

00:10:51:00 - 00:11:32:10
Suzanne Taylor-King
With Google's new notebook LM feature and I created all these notes on sales, all different sales books, all different insights, all different gurus information, and combined it all together and had it make me a study guide for getting better at sales, from attraction marketing to authentic conversations. And it turned out so good the first time I ever did it on a topic, and I shared the study guide with one of my clients and he was like, where'd you get this?

00:11:32:12 - 00:12:09:07
Suzanne Taylor-King
And I made it from all of my notes. And so now I feel like I have an outline of a learning track for myself, and it made it so simple. But the point, you know, to creating that second brain for yourself and going deep on a topic and being immersive in that topic. I studied French in high school, but when I went to Italy for two weeks, by the end of the two weeks, I was ordering everything in Italian.

00:12:09:07 - 00:12:22:10
Suzanne Taylor-King
I was asking for directions in Italian, exactly what I was doing. I mean, ordered dinner. Yeah, and wine and everything I needed in Italian. Yeah, because you're in it.

00:12:22:12 - 00:12:42:07
Christian Ray Flores
And so. Yeah. So don't say, don't ever say I'm bad at sales, right? I'm just not a creative person. I'm just not a people person. I don't know how to manage it. Inspire. Don't say any of those things. It's just not true. You're just not willing to focus and put in the the incremental daily work. You don't want to be immersed.

00:12:42:09 - 00:13:01:00
Christian Ray Flores
You don't want to do the hard work and to be to fail and sort of, you know, feel a bit awkward. And then I think the last piece that it's really important that, we need to point out here is that you need accountability. So you need someone to say, you don't say it this way. You say it that way.

00:13:01:02 - 00:13:08:23
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah. And that's the hardest thing to find. That's why you need a coach or cohort, our community or a mentor, actually, maybe all of the above.

00:13:09:01 - 00:13:10:11
Suzanne Taylor-King
Like all of the above.

00:13:10:12 - 00:13:32:18
Christian Ray Flores
That's the that's the missing element. Yeah. Because you don't get feedback. The world real life needs to give you feedback. Yes. And if you don't put yourself in a situation where you get constant, constant feedback, you're actually not going to progress, because you will just sort of learn and not do or you'll learn, you'll do and then not learn from the mistakes, but you'll learn, you'll do.

00:13:32:18 - 00:13:44:08
Christian Ray Flores
And then you make some mistakes and you give up because it's just discouraging. But if you have the feedback, the community, the guidance, that's when that becomes rocket fuel for you.

00:13:44:10 - 00:14:15:22
Suzanne Taylor-King
I love that so much because I think feedback once, once you know yourself well enough, yeah, to receive negative feedback and not get all emotional about it right, to really receive, hey, I noticed you did this and you know, it didn't go so well or asking really hard questions about what you're doing about yourself and be able to receive it.

00:14:16:00 - 00:14:51:10
Suzanne Taylor-King
If it's not praise and then make changes, you know, pivot, make those changes. That's the skill of a really great entrepreneur, somebody who's willing to receive that negative feedback and not let ego get in the way of that. I guess, you know, to be able to say, to be able to look at yourself outside of yourself and be able to make changes based on that negative feedback, sometimes it's better than positive feedback.

00:14:51:12 - 00:15:13:18
Christian Ray Flores
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I think but what gets in the way is the ego. I think what you're saying is interesting. That's why there's this myth that children have like maybe ten. That's the neuroplasticity of, of, of a, adult. And I actually don't think that's true. The latest sort of studies that came out basically say that we're near neuroplasticity throughout our lives.

00:15:13:20 - 00:15:37:11
Christian Ray Flores
What happens is we become stagnant in our own minds and the ego gets in the way. So, oh, I'm not supposed to suck. Yeah, I am, whatever 3035 I'm I'm supposed to be masterful at everything in life, right? Which is completely a myth. It's just not true. And that's why the people succeed. They're very eclectic in their back, in the background.

00:15:37:11 - 00:15:57:07
Christian Ray Flores
Usually, if you look at the origin story of like a Steve Jobs, because not even a computer guy, he's a he's a visual guy. He started calligraphy. He was interested in all kinds of different things. Somehow that really came together with the apple. Right? And was obviously being the brains of the of the computer stuff. But that's just how it works.

00:15:57:09 - 00:16:15:11
Christian Ray Flores
And the cool news is that anybody can become that. That's what I love about talk. Why? I love talking about it. Right. And for me, I can say if I just say, yeah, I was, you know, nine. I learned four languages by age nine. I'm still fluent in all four, by the way. Right.

00:16:15:12 - 00:16:17:13
Suzanne Taylor-King
Amazing.

00:16:17:15 - 00:16:45:14
Christian Ray Flores
And then I was able to do five different careers, not just skills, but actually distinct careers that I can point out and say, I was really good at this, these five things. Right? And so I was able to just shift industries altogether and people go, oh, you're so talented. It's not about talent at all, actually. You know, I think talent is really overrated and talent is really we hide behind this, these sort of words of talent or charisma or giftedness.

00:16:45:16 - 00:17:09:17
Christian Ray Flores
And maybe there's an element, right? Maybe there's an element, there's a predisposition towards one thing, but really it's it's about the ability to learn, expand quickly the speed of learning. That creates the thing that we now interpret as talent or charisma. Yeah. And I believe every person is capable of doing that if they understand just the core principles of this.

00:17:09:19 - 00:17:51:15
Suzanne Taylor-King
I well, that's what my upcoming book is actually about. And, you know, from that reframe of that, it's actually the the ability to pivot, the ability to grow, the ability to change when you need to change. I now understand why your story really resonated with me because I've had five careers as well. Very distinct, totally different. And it's almost like when you become good at reinvention or pivoting, you crave it.

00:17:51:17 - 00:18:07:19
Suzanne Taylor-King
And I realized that doing that for other people was a huge passion, helping them do that, because I've done it so many times, and I wonder if that's true for you and why you're doing what you're doing now.

00:18:07:21 - 00:18:34:23
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah, I think it may be actually, now that you bring it up, because what comes easy to me when, it seems impossible to other people. Yeah, I know, I know for a fact that it's not there. They're totally capable of doing that. They're just not seeing it. Right. And they're feeling too much stuff. And if they just understood the principles, the core stuff, right out of this thing, anybody can do it.

00:18:34:23 - 00:18:53:09
Christian Ray Flores
And I think you're right. I think it's really cool to say, hey, if you if you allow me to coach you and if you actually allow me to trust the process. Right, because you don't see around corners like I do in this particular area. If you allow me to do that, I promise you this is going to work for you.

00:18:53:11 - 00:19:09:22
Christian Ray Flores
And to see people just sort of relax and breathe and go, okay, I trust you, man, I trust you. You know, I really want this. And and to see them just light up, you know, and go, oh my gosh, I can totally do this. It's incredibly rewarding. You really.

00:19:10:00 - 00:19:43:03
Suzanne Taylor-King
It is. And I was just thinking about numerous clients all at the same time who had that moment of like, much like I did, realizing that those past careers were actually all pivotal in doing what I do now, seeing the connection between being a dental hygienist for 20 years, starting businesses on the side while I was doing that.

00:19:43:05 - 00:20:19:22
Suzanne Taylor-King
The interesting piece and and when I put it together of the practice of building rapport with people, you know, 30 hours a week, every hour was a new person, a new person, a new person. And I had to make them feel safe and they had to trust me. And they were from all different walks of life. And oh my gosh, the experience and the richness of that, when I really looked at it, was how many people of I had one on one conversations with in 20 years of that career, and there's nothing to be afraid of now.

00:20:20:00 - 00:20:44:03
Suzanne Taylor-King
You know, 15 years ago when I came into the online space to be a coach, it was like, ooh, how do I talk to people? Oh, silly. You've been doing it for 20 years. And that awareness of the past connections to your current career, to me, that's what makes the pivot so magical, is helping people see that connection.

00:20:44:05 - 00:20:56:23
Suzanne Taylor-King
And it's the perfect segue for me to ask, how did being an actual rock star. Yeah, and yes, I watched the video. So you did, I did, I had to I.

00:20:57:01 - 00:21:00:02
Christian Ray Flores
The one with all of the hair. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:00:04 - 00:21:22:07
Suzanne Taylor-King
I had, how did how did that career, you know, being on stage being, you know, a well known persona. How did that those skills from that career feel, this career that you have now?

00:21:22:09 - 00:21:40:09
Christian Ray Flores
I think essentially one one thing that's important is when you when you're a musician and you were, you know, especially if you have a choice. Right? Because there are musicians that are just that's all they do. That's all they can do. That's that's all they know how to do. They're all in into this music thing because the probability of success is a very close to zero.

00:21:40:09 - 00:22:06:01
Christian Ray Flores
Right. It's, even if you go to college for music, you know, the percentage of, of of musicians who become self-funded, financially independent are very, very, maybe 1%. So you know that we all know that. And if you have a choice, you then still choose that, which was sort of my thing, because I got a master's degree in economics and all of my friends are going into finance and banking and trade and stuff like that.

00:22:06:03 - 00:22:29:23
Christian Ray Flores
And I still chose the artistic way because I was super bored with this other thing. Like there was this intuition and I think trusting intuition rather than trusting, you know, staying in your lane, so to say, is one, one really interesting thing. Yeah. So because I made that choice, I, I can now point I can talk to people and say, so what lets you up.

00:22:30:00 - 00:22:51:14
Christian Ray Flores
You know, like and sort of still start digging about the things that are there just under the surface that are just gifts and there's passion there. There's skills, there's insights there, even within their own industry, that can be just in the in the wrong, in the in their own industry. But people don't make the switch because they, they fear the uncertainty.

00:22:51:15 - 00:23:22:11
Christian Ray Flores
Right. And I would say having that first experience, going that doing something really crazy, like, I'm going to I'm going to be a musician, right? And be like a starving artist and writing songs in the kitchen, in the subway and stuff like that. I didn't yes, just getting by barely, you know, and and then seeing that all of a sudden, all of a sudden start getting traction and I got into sort of small clubs and bigger clubs and sports arenas, TV magazine covers, radio, the whole thing right before the internet.

00:23:22:13 - 00:23:38:19
Christian Ray Flores
It really taught me this, this one thing is that it's not really about the statistical probability of you succeeding at all because. Because people go, well, it's 1 in 1,000,000 chances. Why would I do that? Right. Well, you're thinking of yourself as a statistic then.

00:23:39:12 - 00:23:55:20
Christian Ray Flores
And you're not a statistic. You're a human being right. You're a human being with with insights, gifts, passions, even origin story dimensions that equip you very uniquely for certain things. And you don't even pay attention to that.

00:23:56:23 - 00:24:02:13
Christian Ray Flores
So you think being, a cog in a machine is risky?

00:24:02:15 - 00:24:22:03
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah. Because it's because the machine will keep you safe. The machine will never keep you safe. The machine doesn't care, right? Right. But being uniquely qualified for something and mining for that and creating a brand out of it, that is, that is the risky thing to do. And I think it's not actually the other thing. The cog in the machine move is the risky move.

00:24:22:05 - 00:24:23:02
Christian Ray Flores
So that's.

00:24:23:07 - 00:24:24:16
Suzanne Taylor-King
Interesting.

00:24:24:18 - 00:24:39:01
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah. Yeah. So to me that's sort of a self-evident thing because I've seen it work. Right. And when you have your first success at age 25, 24, you know, that really sinks in that possibility is there.

00:24:39:03 - 00:24:40:01
Suzanne Taylor-King
Yes.

00:24:40:03 - 00:25:01:16
Christian Ray Flores
So, so I can be in my 30s, 40, 50, 60s and I can say, yeah, possibilities there. So I will start this other business and or people go, why would you do that? How do you know it's gonna work? I don't know if it's going to work, but I know possibilities there. And also I'm not afraid of, of sort of the perceived consequences of failure.

00:25:01:16 - 00:25:03:09
Christian Ray Flores
I think that's a big piece right.

00:25:03:11 - 00:25:04:00
Suzanne Taylor-King
Yeah.

00:25:04:02 - 00:25:27:06
Christian Ray Flores
Because I'll tell you a story, I think to illustrate the I was in my, I think I was 12 or 13. We're living in Africa at the time and my family was we were traveling, you know, we were having this sort of big vacation. So traveling across the, the, the coast of Mozambique. And then we had to hop over to this little island called Santa Catalina.

00:25:27:08 - 00:25:44:01
Christian Ray Flores
And we're on this little plane, you know, those tiny, tiny planes. Yeah. And it's sort of flies pretty low. So we're looking down and sort of like, I don't know, maybe 2 or 3 miles from the coast, we see this dark figure and we go, what's that? And and the guy, the pilot says, oh, that's John Joe.

00:25:44:01 - 00:25:58:20
Christian Ray Flores
I was like John in Portuguese. And I'm like, what, what, what's what's he doing in the middle of nowhere? He goes, oh, here's our here's our, he does spearfishing for the for the hotel. He gets us fish and lobster and things like that. And we're like, where's the boat? And he goes, oh, he doesn't have a boat.

00:25:58:20 - 00:26:15:22
Christian Ray Flores
He just swims out there and we're like, okay. And so we meet this guy Joel, and he's like the real life Aquaman situation right here. And we're like, hey, can you show us around? Because we we were spear fishers. We wanted to find the good spots. So we hired him to pay him a little money, and we spent a lot of time with him.

00:26:16:03 - 00:26:41:04
Christian Ray Flores
And it was amazing to to see him first of all, do his thing was amazing. And also, I remember distinctly the conversation that taught me about fear. Something about fear, because he was telling us that the The Lobster, which is sort of the premier thing that he was looking for, was usually congregate under rocks. Then the other thing under the rocks is sharks because they sleep there.

00:26:41:06 - 00:26:41:23
Suzanne Taylor-King
Okay.

00:26:42:01 - 00:27:00:01
Christian Ray Flores
They because sharks need to keep moving for oxygen to go through the gills. And if they go under a rock, they can be still. But the current that goes under the rock, oxygen, it's there. So that's how they sleep. And I'm like, oh, cool. Interesting. And you go and I go, so what do you what do you do when you see a shark and you have to get to the lobster?

00:27:00:03 - 00:27:23:00
Christian Ray Flores
And he goes, I just shake them. What are like what? And he goes, yeah, I just grab them by the fin, shake him, and they swim away and that, that that image stuck with me forever. Because what it shows me is very simple. Because he is not crazy. He was not is he was not supernatural. He just knew that the probability of a shark attacking you is very close to zero in size matters.

00:27:23:00 - 00:27:44:19
Christian Ray Flores
You're bigger than most sharks that are under those rocks. If you shaken by the fin, they'll just swim away. That's all. There's nothing to it. It's just. It's just a perceived fear, right? And basically the image of like in life, if you think about it, if you want to get to the lobster, the lobsters of life, the good stuff, you have to shake a shark.

00:27:44:20 - 00:27:45:14
Suzanne Taylor-King
I love it.

00:27:45:19 - 00:28:09:03
Christian Ray Flores
You know, I love to have. You have to, And those sharks are, you know, it could be all kinds of things, so. Okay. So I'll fail. Okay. Imagine what the consequences of those things would be. I'll have less money. Okay. Are you going to be hungry? Are you going to lose your house? Probably not. If you're in the US, if you're in the Western world, are you going to a people going to critique you?

00:28:09:04 - 00:28:28:14
Christian Ray Flores
Maybe a little bit? Are they going to hate you? Not really. Especially not in America, where failure is sort of this almost like a badge of honor. Fail. Well, fail forward, you know, those things. Okay. What's the worst that can happen? Actually? And the people, once people start thinking about it, they go, actually, not that much, you know, it's right and stuff.

00:28:28:19 - 00:28:47:01
Christian Ray Flores
It's like, so why don't you go for it? If you're passionate about this thing and you go, I don't, I don't, I don't know why I don't go for it actually. And they shake the shark basically. So to me that's a big thing right in, in, in coaching and guidance and in anyone, any mentor that can see around corners.

00:28:47:02 - 00:29:07:01
Christian Ray Flores
And you want to pursue something and you're just, I know about this and you can make decisions like my friends. You how you can shake the shark. Can you get to the lobster only that way? Actually, I don't think you can do anything in life that is important. Interesting. That enriches the human beings around you without shaking a shark or two.

00:29:07:03 - 00:29:39:10
Suzanne Taylor-King
Agreed? Agreed at anything. I mean, even something for yourself. Yeah. What? Your record then? Do you think that. Do you think it's a combination of. Of courage? Do you think it's courage? Grit? Maybe just the the vision, you know, being pulled forward by that vision of what the future could be like that makes it easier. Is it a combination of all those things?

00:29:39:12 - 00:30:10:04
Christian Ray Flores
That's. Yeah, I think it's I think it's a combination. I think it's a mystery, quite frankly. Right. But I would say I really believe that emotion is a driving force here. And we live in a very cerebral culture. So logic sort of trumps emotion essentially. You know, it's illogical, it's irrational. So that's sort of that's that really has almost like a there's a tyranny of that in Western culture.

00:30:10:06 - 00:30:41:15
Christian Ray Flores
Yes. And one of the advantages, I think, of growing up overseas and all over the place is that you see glimpses of not that, and you realize that emotion makes a big difference. So you can trust your instinct or your deeper emotional response to certain things more than you think you can. But we don't trust it. We just go, oh, that's just, you know, impulse and passion, power, passion doesn't pay off, etc., etc. I really disagree.

00:30:41:15 - 00:31:04:18
Christian Ray Flores
I think passion drives us to persist, to persevere when things are grim. Only passion gets us through that, you know, slump. You know, with music, it's sort of a very natural thing, right? It's like, I just love music. I feel like I think I can do something good about it. And. And no one knows this. No one believes you.

00:31:04:18 - 00:31:32:05
Christian Ray Flores
And actually, you'd probably suck in the beginning anyway, so there's no evidence to it in the first place. But if you follow that and you go, I'm going to just get better. But that's that's really true of anything, as a matter of fact. So whether you're an investing investment banking or you want to become a writer or a ballet dancer or doctor, if you don't have that passion, you're going to become really mediocre, I think.

00:31:32:07 - 00:31:33:00
Suzanne Taylor-King
Agree.

00:31:33:01 - 00:31:56:15
Christian Ray Flores
And it can be it can be well paid, mediocre. But you're going to be mediocre and that's uninspiring. I think it's underwhelming. I think all kinds of bad things happen just downstream from mediocre and from lack of passion. So sort of tapping into what lights me up, what makes me feel fully alive actually. What is that?

00:31:56:17 - 00:32:12:00
Christian Ray Flores
And then pulling at that thread, which is a torturous process in the first place, right? Because you don't know what's on the other end. Yeah. I think more people, if more people do that, they will find treasures there.

00:32:12:01 - 00:32:35:06
Suzanne Taylor-King
Well, I think that's why I became so passionate about helping people do that, find their way intellectual property, where it crosses their skill level, where it crosses their challenge level, learning level, like because I had to do it for myself and got such rewards from doing it. I think that's what made me passionate about helping other people do it.

00:32:35:06 - 00:33:18:02
Suzanne Taylor-King
Who didn't see that as the path to getting what they wanted. Something else you said kind of made me think about sales, since we were talking about learning about sales earlier, that if when I have been most successful while selling something like just anything, I was passionate about it. My very first business, I sold snowboards and skateboards, and I was always better at selling the snowboards and the clothing and all the things because I was passionate about actually doing it and traveling all over the world to do it.

00:33:18:04 - 00:33:47:11
Suzanne Taylor-King
And I think about that. Well, that's why I was better at it, because I knew it. I lived it, I was breathing the sport. So became easier in my coaching life. And I'm sure you noticed this, too. When you sell coaching like nobody has a budget for coaching, right? You don't wake up in the morning and say, oh, I know, you know, X amount of dollars and I'm going to hire a coach.

00:33:47:14 - 00:33:51:13
Suzanne Taylor-King
Like, unless you're already a coach, you're not thinking like.

00:33:51:13 - 00:34:03:15
Christian Ray Flores
No, no, no, no. And that's what I'm actually most successful people. There's, I think there's been studies that more success, ultra successful people spend 10% of time, energy and money on personal development.

00:34:03:21 - 00:34:04:12
Suzanne Taylor-King
Yes.

00:34:04:13 - 00:34:10:02
Christian Ray Flores
And that's why they're successful. Yeah. And most people don't have that idea. That's why they're not successful.

00:34:10:04 - 00:34:32:03
Suzanne Taylor-King
We're not why I've heard. So my most successful coaching programs were based on work that I've done on myself. And it took me, you know, 2 or 5 years to complete X, and now I'm going to do it with my clients in three months, like so shortening that.

00:34:32:05 - 00:34:32:18
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah.

00:34:32:18 - 00:34:34:15
Suzanne Taylor-King
Yeah, yeah. For other people. Right.

00:34:34:15 - 00:34:35:11
Christian Ray Flores
That's right. Yeah.

00:34:35:13 - 00:35:13:04
Suzanne Taylor-King
And I, I think when I found that out, combined with the fact that only 5% of people do personal development and grow themselves from that perspective, I was like, well, that's a huge opportunity, right there. If 95% of people are not doing that, and I wonder, you know, when you look at your history in coaching and high performance habits and all of that goodness is the work that you do.

00:35:13:06 - 00:35:21:00
Suzanne Taylor-King
You know, the most rewarding piece of what you do? Is it the work that you've done on yourself as well?

00:35:21:01 - 00:35:31:03
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah, of course, it's almost always here's a actually in my the big For me that basically was I think the seed.

00:35:32:00 - 00:35:55:23
Christian Ray Flores
That was planted in me years and years before I started coaching in a very much more structured, intentional way, was I was literally at the top of my game as a pop star. I was doing sports arenas. I was, you know, I was in Eastern Europe, in Russia, in literally Boris Yeltsin's presidential campaign used my song as the anthem for their fight against the communists, who were winning at the time.

00:35:55:23 - 00:36:16:19
Christian Ray Flores
They're leading in the polls. So it's like at the peak, peak, peak of my career, but there's parts of my character that was deeply flawed and underdeveloped. So I was exceptionally good at music and entertainment and all all kinds related to that. I was terrible at relationships, at romantic relationships and emotional self-management. Right. Those are those three things.

00:36:16:19 - 00:36:50:01
Christian Ray Flores
And there's more things that I was bad at. But those are the things that sort of came to the surface. And I just found myself literally clinically depressed while living the dream. Right. And that really put it still, this image still drives me because I see extraordinarily gifted, wealthy, popular, or skilled individuals, and most of them have high talent and high flaws.

00:36:50:03 - 00:37:18:20
Christian Ray Flores
It just sort of cabins that way, right? And it's nature and nurture etc. it doesn't matter what it comes from, but so there are vulnerabilities actually start limiting their professional thing that they dedicated decades of their life to, to, to doing. And they become ineffective, uncreative, sort of start bleeding creative energy, you know, and it happens all the time.

00:37:18:20 - 00:37:47:10
Christian Ray Flores
It's endemic. It's everywhere. And I was like the poster boy for that. And it was not until I met this guy who was a pastor, Canadian pastor that I basically I was humble enough because I was super arrogant. Obviously, when you're massively popular at age 25, like, arrogance just oozes out of your pores, right? And I was just so, so sad that I was like, okay, I think I need to ask for help.

00:37:47:12 - 00:38:07:19
Christian Ray Flores
And I was having dinner with this guy and family, and you go and I'm like, can you teach me the things that you know? And I how do I get what you have? Basically. And he was like, I can teach you and I, I it was like a switch came. First of all, I found someone who, with ancient wisdom, profound multi-generational wisdom in the areas that I liked.

00:38:07:20 - 00:38:31:03
Christian Ray Flores
Second, I found myself in a situation of complete humility and surrender because I said, look how I did. How I've done this so far has not worked out for me, you know? So I did it my way. Can I? I'll just trust this guy basically, you know. Yeah. And I, I said, please teach me because I need to learn this stuff and the pain is unbearable.

00:38:31:04 - 00:38:56:15
Christian Ray Flores
I need to learn. So the pain goes away and and just submitting to the person, giving him my heart, my trust for an extended period of time literally changed the trajectory of my life. Well, and I just realized, oh my gosh, even if you're extremely talented and driven, there's you have vulnerabilities that can bring you down and slow you down and actually destroy you at some point.

00:38:56:15 - 00:39:24:16
Christian Ray Flores
I mean, I have several people who have lost to suicide really close, very, very, very famous people within. But if you trust somebody to guide you, there are no limits to the things that you can do. And you can live a healthy, wealthy, longer, happier life. If you just allow yourself to learn the things that you're not good at and no one is good at everything, you just doesn't exist, right?

00:39:24:16 - 00:39:36:23
Suzanne Taylor-King
Right. Well, I, I think that that what you're saying is, you know, you were aware enough of what you didn't know.

00:39:37:01 - 00:39:38:03
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah.

00:39:38:05 - 00:39:54:01
Suzanne Taylor-King
What would you say to somebody who's in that position right now? I know they're missing something, but they're not quite sure what they don't know. What would your advice be?

00:39:54:03 - 00:40:20:08
Christian Ray Flores
I would, I would say, stop what you're doing and figure it out, because that thing that's just under the surface that is blocking you is going to keep blocking you. Like try harder. It's not it's almost never the right answer. You know, do what you're doing, only harder white knuckling it. It's called right. It just doesn't work. And stopping and saying, okay, what am I missing exactly.

00:40:20:08 - 00:40:42:06
Christian Ray Flores
And then look for a resource, a person, a guide and say, yes, I believe you are the person. And that's important because you have to sort of you have to have faith in the person. Go, I, I will trust you with my journey, which I think the big thing for me was, I, I really did that. That was the smartest thing of that in my life.

00:40:42:06 - 00:41:06:17
Christian Ray Flores
Right? Trust that guy was just wise and he fixed me. He healed me. All of the things that I was bad I'm good at now, actually. And and to me, that's a massive deal. And consider the the concept, the cost of. Have you ever heard of the, ignorance tax concerns. Yes. Yes. They they don't have sex. Right.

00:41:06:20 - 00:41:29:02
Christian Ray Flores
The minister says, look, if you want to learn how to make, you know, $1 million and you're making a hundred thousand every, every year that you don't learn how to make $1 million, you're paying $900,000 of ignorance tax. Right? But it's true of everything. It's true of relationships and romance and, you know, emotional and self-management, whatever that every year that you don't in an accelerated, focused way, learn the thing that's causing the pain.

00:41:29:07 - 00:41:34:09
Christian Ray Flores
You're going to you're you're multiplying the pain and the years that you spend in that.

00:41:34:11 - 00:41:35:10
Suzanne Taylor-King
Yes.

00:41:35:12 - 00:41:43:10
Christian Ray Flores
That is just true. So when when you when people say, I don't have a budget for for coaching. Yeah. But do you have a budget for ignorance tax.

00:41:44:12 - 00:41:47:13
Christian Ray Flores
And that's because the truth is you're paying either way.

00:41:47:15 - 00:41:57:08
Suzanne Taylor-King
Yeah. I wish I had known that at 24 when I was getting married for the second time. So thanks for you know it took me a while to learn.

00:41:57:10 - 00:41:58:12
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah. Yeah.

00:41:58:13 - 00:42:28:22
Suzanne Taylor-King
You know, and all the things that I was bad at, I, I wouldn't even attempt to add up how much that has cost me for not taking, I don't know, certain actions or asking for help. I mean, asking for help as an entrepreneur can be the hardest thing in the world. But gosh, if you don't ask, where do you end up?

00:42:29:00 - 00:42:56:06
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah, and the thing is, it's never too late, right? Yeah. You, because I think the the older you get, the more the perception of I shouldn't, I should have my act together by now. And it's just the shame that comes with that. It's pretty strong. I mean, there's things that I'm bad at now that I have deep emotional, like a deep emotional regret of going, how can I how come I have not figure this thing out?

00:42:56:06 - 00:43:16:19
Christian Ray Flores
I'm 55 years old. What the heck? I'm very I'm smart. I know how to learn. I, you know, I teach other people. And this one thing is just not, you know, it's just not getting better with me. And and that comes with shame and guilt. And am I too old for this, this kind of thing? And I think it's never too late.

00:43:16:19 - 00:43:34:21
Christian Ray Flores
Honestly. And yes, I think it's better for sure to be proactive. You know, I have three guys now in my cohort, in my coaching cohort who are in their like literally early 30s. And I look at them and I go, you guys are so smart. Oh my gosh. Right. You got you.

00:43:35:02 - 00:43:37:00
Suzanne Taylor-King
Farther along than us, right?

00:43:37:03 - 00:43:46:07
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah. Good for you. Right. You're gonna you're going to change the trajectory. You're going to fix some of those things, and it's going to accelerate your flourishing

00:43:46:07 - 00:43:54:21
Christian Ray Flores
you have no idea how good this is for you, right? Yeah. Because you're doing it early. And then I have, you know, clients were in this in their mid 60s and sometimes they sort of come with that.

00:43:54:21 - 00:44:05:16
Christian Ray Flores
Gosh, I can't believe I'm asking for help. And I say to them, really? Is it? I mean, the best time to write a book is ten years ago. Everybody knows. That's right. Yeah. You know, so.

00:44:05:18 - 00:44:08:06
Suzanne Taylor-King
But that's what I'm still not going to do one now.

00:44:08:07 - 00:44:29:08
Christian Ray Flores
Exactly. Like I'm glad you I'm glad you're in the fight. I'm glad you're faking this, that it's you have you have many years ahead. And I don't think you lose the ability to learn and be flexible and plastic. Actually, at all, you really don't, you know, there's nuances that type of stuff you learn there, science behind it.

00:44:29:10 - 00:44:39:13
Christian Ray Flores
But the ability to dramatically transform your mind, your body, your life, your finances is available to you. And that's a beautiful, beautiful thing about human beings.

00:44:39:15 - 00:44:49:07
Suzanne Taylor-King
I love it. My good friend Deanna, she's asking, why is it so hard for entrepreneurs to ask for help?

00:44:49:09 - 00:45:12:00
Christian Ray Flores
Well, because you are the explorer of the of of the business world. You're the person who, you know, like 300 years ago, these were the entrepreneurs, were the ones who would boarded ships and like half of the ships would, like, sink on the way to the promised land. They don't even know the Promised Land exists. Right? They're like, yeah, there's probably gold and spices there.

00:45:12:02 - 00:45:13:11
Christian Ray Flores
And I'm going to just do it, you know.

00:45:13:16 - 00:45:15:07
Suzanne Taylor-King
Maybe, maybe there's land out.

00:45:15:07 - 00:45:41:03
Christian Ray Flores
There. Maybe. Yeah, I don't even know. And we're probably going to die. So the kiss, you kiss your wife goodbye and your children, they might. They might see you or not see you in like, five years, maybe. So I talk numbers are the most passionate, the most intentional people, the most intense that have face. And with that comes embedded a sense of independence, of pride even.

00:45:41:05 - 00:46:01:15
Christian Ray Flores
Because if you listen to everybody around you, you're never going to do the same. So you teach yourself to not listen to everybody around you so that actually still do the thing, that they did back it's so backfires because now you're so independent, so driven that it's hard for you to go. So what does everybody think? I think this is not working very well right now.

00:46:01:16 - 00:46:25:21
Suzanne Taylor-King
Okay. I love that because that's totally the definition of entrepreneurship in my mind that, you know, everybody thinks you're crazy. What are you doing? Well, my friends, two weeks ago, three weeks ago said, what are you doing on the weekend? And I said, oh, I'm working on my book and the action plan that goes with the book.

00:46:25:21 - 00:46:43:20
Suzanne Taylor-King
And she said, why, you're almost 60, shouldn't you be retiring? And oh my God, it was like a dirty word. I was like, oh no, never, never. That's why I do what I do so that I can continue, right?

00:46:43:22 - 00:46:44:14
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah.

00:46:44:16 - 00:46:59:22
Suzanne Taylor-King
And it was just this really interesting perspective like, oh, she thinks I'm old and I should be getting ready to retire. Why would you want to work that hard? And I think what I'm doing is fun.

00:47:00:00 - 00:47:00:17
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah.

00:47:00:19 - 00:47:02:03
Suzanne Taylor-King
Wow.

00:47:02:05 - 00:47:05:05
Christian Ray Flores
Yeah. Retirement is a is a horrible concept in the first place.

00:47:05:05 - 00:47:06:01
Suzanne Taylor-King
Horrible.

00:47:06:03 - 00:47:28:01
Christian Ray Flores
Like it's a new it's concept that for thousands of years didn't even exist. Right. So and you know, the American version of it is like you play golf with your buddies in Florida. Oh, you know, shoot me now. It's just horrible. It's like slow death. It's really it's actually very bad for you to get to that version of it.

00:47:28:03 - 00:47:46:03
Christian Ray Flores
Now, ideally, if you are financially independent, you have to work for your money, but you still work. You still serve people. That's that's, you know, financial independence is a really great goal to have retirement as stop bringing value to the world. That's a horrible concept.

00:47:46:05 - 00:47:58:09
Suzanne Taylor-King
Yeah. Agreed. Agreed. Perfect place to ask you about your branding work and how my listeners can get in touch with you.

00:47:58:11 - 00:48:03:01
Christian Ray Flores
Okay. So if you want to follow some of the stuff that I bring, on a regular basis.

00:48:03:07 - 00:48:05:03
Suzanne Taylor-King
Or see your rock star videos.

00:48:05:05 - 00:48:30:10
Christian Ray Flores
Oh, I mean, if you want to see my rock star videos, go to YouTube and put in Christian reference and you'll see a lot of 90s stuff there. It's a lot of fun. It's in all kinds of languages. But that's just for that's just for your entertainment and amusement. If you want to follow me, Christian rainforest.com is basically my Substack home, and it's I put out a newsletter every week on a Sunday.

00:48:30:12 - 00:48:52:15
Christian Ray Flores
It's usually a combination of some text stuff that I love, books that I'm reading, words that movies that I watching. A lot of the times it includes the episode of of my podcast on video, audio and, that's Christian rainforest.com. It's free you for I think for the, the, the first, the last basically three weeks I believe are free.

00:48:52:15 - 00:49:14:04
Christian Ray Flores
And then if you want to get access to the full archive, it's like the price of a latte a month. That's it. A lot of goodness there. I put a lot of work into it. We have, I think, close to 21,000 subscribers right now. That's that's if you're just generally curious if you want to be if you want to get serious about either coaching or personal brand development.

00:49:14:06 - 00:49:37:20
Christian Ray Flores
I have a wait list, so I really don't have the capacity to take on a lot of clients. I just take seven at a time and my cohorts, and it's a combo of cohort plus one on one. So it's a hybrid. You can go to Exponential Life with that. The e the cool way to spell exponential with an ex exponential life is is the exponential, performance coaching website.

00:49:37:22 - 00:50:00:02
Christian Ray Flores
And but you can, you can reach out, you can set up a strategy call like if it's a fit, you can just join the waitlist and we'll let you know when there's a spot available, the branding stuff you go to third the Drive media.com, and you'll see the work with you. Basically it's a it's a broad it's a fairly broad portfolio over the years.

00:50:00:02 - 00:50:28:12
Christian Ray Flores
It's it's essentially nonprofits, churches, nonprofits, text startups. And now sort of the latest wave is personal brand development for people like, you know, basically people who want to start their own brand, develop their own business. I'm really passionate about that because it's it's never been as profitable, as easy and as important as it is now, literally in history.

00:50:29:21 - 00:50:51:17
Christian Ray Flores
To develop your, your own personal brand. And I think it's exceptionally important even for people who go, yeah, well, I work at a big corporation and I'm just a this but like a, you know, a senior management or whatever. I really think that anyone everywhere should have a personal brand because that's how you are known. It's basically reputation at scale.

00:50:51:19 - 00:51:29:04
Christian Ray Flores
That's what it means. And what. So there's no really there's no downside to it because it's you expressing your expertise, your passion to the world, whether you are just part of a big corporation or you're solopreneur or whatever. Right. And there's no downside. The reason why people don't do it is fear is because they do not want to put their name, a stand by, a statement, a set of values, set of insights for fear that people will either not be interested or ridicule them or reject them, which is completely a shake the shark situation.

00:51:29:04 - 00:51:31:06
Christian Ray Flores
Okay, yeah, like shake the shark.

00:51:31:09 - 00:51:38:06
Suzanne Taylor-King
One of the core human. Yeah. Years to be rejected and thrown away. Yeah. Yeah.

00:51:38:08 - 00:52:02:10
Christian Ray Flores
Right. Yeah. And it's it's basically not real, you know? It's just not real. I don't care who you are. If you're passionate about. You're saying you're going to find a small group of the 66 billion people on the planet who will love your thing specifically, and that is worth investing in. You know, even if it's a thousand people only, it's totally worth investing.

00:52:02:10 - 00:52:10:20
Christian Ray Flores
There's no downside to it. It's obviously it takes effort and energy and but, it's it's a wonderful thing. It really, really is.

00:52:10:22 - 00:52:15:16
Suzanne Taylor-King
Yeah. So worth the ride. Thank you, Christian, for joining me today. I appreciate you.

00:52:15:18 - 00:52:17:16
Christian Ray Flores
SDK. Thank you for inviting me. Appreciate it.

00:52:17:16 - 00:52:24:16
Suzanne Taylor-King
You're welcome. You're welcome. Have an awesome weekend everybody I hope you enjoyed this conversation. And we'll see you next Friday.

00:52:24:16 - 00:52:52:09
Suzanne Taylor-King
Thank you for tuning in to another empowering episode of Unlock Your Way. I hope you found today's discussion inspiring, and you're ready to take your business and personal growth to that next level. If you're feeling is fired up as I am and eager to unlock that full potential, I'm here to help you on your journey and provide that personalized guidance tailored to your unique goals and challenges.

00:52:52:11 - 00:53:19:04
Suzanne Taylor-King
Simply book a one on one coaching call with me, and we'll dive deep into your business aspirations and see how we could co-create a roadmap for your success. And whether you're striving to scale an enterprise size or just getting started. I'm here to support you every step of the way. To schedule your coaching call, simply visit the website and unlock your way with SI.com.

00:53:19:06 - 00:53:58:04
Suzanne Taylor-King
Click on the Book a Call button and we'll turn your dreams into that reality. Subscribe and review on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube. Plus, you can join over 800 entrepreneurs in the Idea Lab, Facebook group. Let's make success as an entrepreneur happen together. Until next time, I'm AK. Keep dreaming big. Stay focused. And most of all, have fun while you're doing it.