"I Am" and "I Can" How to Build Your Best Work and Life after Trauma with Chris Williams

Christine Li  0:01  
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 135. 

This episode is very special for me and I hope it's special for you as well. It's special for me because my guest Chris Williams so openly talks about his entire life journey. His journey started from a space of trauma, traumatic childhood and a traumatic family and religious background and start that forced him to have to weather fear, anxiety, and overwhelm on his journey towards a life of personal and professional fulfillment as an adult. 

He currently spends his time with his wife, Jill and their five kids, exploring world communities, and he himself tries his hand at adventures like shark diving, ice climbing, running ultra marathons and riding electric skateboards. In his business hours. He works with entrepreneurial and business experts, speakers, coaches and leaders, helping them to market monetize and lead their own high ticket masterminds, or group coaching programs. You're going to hear all about Chris's company group coach nation in this episode, as well. I think what struck me about this episode was not only Chris's openness, but how he understands his life as a whole, that we can't get the success without figuring out ourselves without dealing with the rough spots without overcoming the parts of us that threatened to hold us back. And so I'm so grateful to Chris, for being with me on this episode, and for being so open. Please note that Chris does mention the fact that he did have thoughts of suicide in the past, so please prioritize your well being and the well being of those who might be listening with you. As you listen. Okay, let's go listen to this wonderful episode together now.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. 

Hi, my friends. Today we're going to have a great conversation, because I have my special guest Chris Williams. On the show. He and I are new friends, new colleagues from the web. From the clear blue sky. We were linked together by our mutual friend and colleague, Lindsey Phillips, who you heard on my show a few episodes ago. Chris is a group coaching expert. And he is great at getting things to be simplified for people so that they can actually deliver their genius to the world and can't wait to get to know Chris better. In today's episode, welcome to the show, Chris.

Chris Williams  3:46  
Oh my gosh, Christine, and all you fans of Christine. Isn't she just like, refreshing? Yes. Okay, so y'all all miss what happens before the show? I? Honestly, Christine, the things that happened before and after the show, I think are way cooler than the shows and sells usually. So let me just kill you. Oh, and Christine's like, Okay, can we stop before we start this episode and just take three cleansing breaths. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, thank you so much. Like, talk about a great way to start. And thank you for just placing that in my day to day beautiful.

Christine Li  4:16  
You're welcome. It works every single time. I would recommend that technique for anyone listening, by the way. So thank you, Chris, for mentioning that. It has a way of stopping any random anxiety from deepening. I think that's at least what they taught me in graduate school. So

Chris Williams  4:32  
what did they know?

Christine Li  4:35  
Podcasting anxiety, but Chris, thank you for being so lovely at the top of the show, and I'm sure throughout the show, you will continue to be lovely. Please let us know what you'd like us to know about you first before we start getting into the nitty gritty about fear and getting through stuff and showing up as your best self.

Chris Williams  4:55  
Okay, so yeah, we're gonna talk about all those things. And I'm someone who struggles a lot with fear I am someone who struggles a lot with anxiety and overwhelm. I love this show, by the way, I don't ever get to talk about this on shows, I'm always gonna talk about business stuff. This is great. So about me, I'm a dad, Joe, and I have five kids. And, like, again, I got a great life going on. Alright, no way around it, we get to travel a lot, I get to play a lot, blah, blah, blah, you know, internet marketer, blah, blah, okay, I'm just not taking a picture from a Ferrari. So I'm not going to weird you out. The thing is, though, like, it looks good. But the truth of it is Christine. And I think everybody here like with us today, we can all resonate with this, you can look good in a moment on Instagram, or at a party, or at your friend's house. But when it comes down to it, we often feel all tangled up inside. And we're just covering and masking. And, and we think everybody else is actually doing awesome, because they're putting on the same mask. So the more I am honest about, like, I had a really rough childhood, and I've been an entrepreneur for over 20 years and lots of ups and downs. There's been times in July couldn't even buy groceries. But when we get honest about those kinds of things, it just helps us bring some humility, some humanity to our own stories. It's easy to watch something on Disney and be like, Oh, that story is beautiful. We have the same beautiful story. We just need to turn around, look at ourselves and acknowledge that and then build for what I do. I just didn't build, okay, here's where I am. I'm acknowledging this, I'm okay. And I'm going to build a simple set of steps that I can accomplish today. And then I'll deal with tomorrow, tomorrow.

Christine Li  6:35  
That is a lot. Thank you for sharing that. And also, I'm so grateful for your honesty. That's why I was so pumped for this episode, because I knew we were gonna get into it. Can you share with us at what point in your life may have been the point where you needed to just find your way through where things were feeling really heavy? As you were doubting yourself? Things weren't going as planned, perhaps, maybe that turning point, I guess, is what I'm getting at?

Chris Williams  7:07  
Yeah, I'm gonna say the turning point is when I was 27, it was before I'd ever seen a mental health, like professional anyway. So thanks for what you do. And I'm sure there's a lot of you out there listening in who are in the mental health space as well. And you guys are just freaking awesome. Thank y'all so much. Like, please keep it up. So I was 27. And I grew up in a really a really abusive home sexually, spiritually, mentally abusive home, just really horrible situations. And my family taught me that I should just stuff all that forgive was a very religious family. There's nothing wrong with religion. It's just they were doing it wrong. And they were just teaching us to suppress and stuff. And so I'm 27. Now I got three kids at that point, I think. And I'm telling Jill, just my best friend for forever. We've been dating for 17. It's like, Babe, I'm, I'm done. I think I'm literally done. I'm about to pull the plug on life. I don't know how to do this. But I can't. I can't continue on this path. And that sounds kind of logical and dry saying it that way. But that's literally how I was thinking about I was I was done with the emotion. I was just like, I've tried everything he's done. She begged me to go see a therapist. So I went to a therapist, his name is Chuck, and great psychologist here in town. And he like in five minutes. He was like telling them about what, what's going on. Like, let's start when you were a kid, what was life? Like? I got five minutes and told him a few things that happened. He was like, and if you were talking about that, no, like, I I'm just gonna stick a minute and just kind of unpack that one a little bit. That was the beginning of a horribly scary roller coaster ride. Because I started unpacking things that were real. And my family of origin fell apart, our entire community fell apart. My family ended up on national freakin news. Because it was really bad. So I realized I was in this nightmare in this in this moment, because it's so many things were happening in the world was falling down around me. And I thought things were gonna get better right away. And that's not the way it works all the time. But I realized I had been dreaming in this nightmare state of life for a long time. And I was just at that point in the nightmare. You know, we've all had them where you're like, almost about to wake up. But it seems horrible. And like you can't wake up. That's what it was like when I started going to therapy. And it was like the tip of that like, the worst part ever. And then it started getting better and worse and better and worse and better and worse, but over time, better and better and better. And I'm bringing all that up to say I was 27 I was already in the workforce. And I was an entrepreneur at that point. Things were broken for me professionally. They're broken in my purse. is no life, they're broken in my family life. Everything was broken. And that's not the only thing I had to go back and fix. There's obviously lots of story for lots of people. But you got to start. So just say all that to say, number one, that's where it started for me to answer your question number two, anybody just like figuring out, here's where I am? Should I go get help? Yes, yes. Go get help. It's worth it.

Christine Li  10:21  
What did you learn in that process of unpacking your history and unpacking the difficulties that you were having about your feelings? Hmm,

Chris Williams  10:31  
oh, my gosh, I learned so much. I mean, I could spend all day on this. I want to go for two different directions. One is that I had to do some very hard things. I had to literally divorce my family of origin. Like, that's so crazy sounding, not a spouse, but like my parents, that there is decisions like that, that I had to make to leave old places in order to create space in my life for something new. It's funny, I don't think we're this is just the first point. The second point is coming, that I don't think we're and Christine, you're the expert here. So credit femoral and it feels like to me though, that we don't create a new space in our lives as adults some time for a healthier new beginning. And leave everything else as it is. It's not like our life has more rooms to just walk into they're empty and ready. You have to empty a freaking room out, throw all the old crap out, rip the carpet up, repaint the walls, and redecorate that room. You know, so I had to go back and do that. And I have one tattoo. It's written on the inside of my left arm. And it says free fr EE. And that's, that is the only word I really want on printed on my body for forever. I constantly remind myself to stay free. Make the choices to stay free. From old traumas, from my own choices, all those things that we have. My guest struggles with is just people, right?

Christine Li  11:59  
Yes. Do you think that you always were connected with that part of you that wanted to be free even before the therapy?

Chris Williams  12:08  
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Even before I mean, I'm always a guy who's going out in the woods, I would go running and hiking, paddleboarding, kayaking, rock climbing, just the outdoors just equals freedom. For me, that's my version of it. And constantly looking for that I just got to a place by time I was 27 that no matter how much freedom, I could throw myself into what was already in the rooms in my own hearts house. I had to rip those rooms out.

Christine Li  12:36  
Yeah. Okay. Now, could you give us a little bit of detail about that process mentally for you? How did you start to Stop stuffing the things that we were trained to stuff away? How did you build new pathways for your brain to work more? freely?

Chris Williams  12:57  
I'm glad you asked. This is the second point. I didn't community. Obviously, some therapist helped me like get some patterns and some structures put together, okay, I need to write some things down. I don't have a place to dump the if I'm like in the middle of old patterns that don't need to have a place to write, here's what I'm struggling with what I'm going to do what I'm not going to do whatever. But then I still have this on my phone, I have a I am list. And then I can list. And I remind myself frequently multiple times a week still, here's the issue. Here's who I am. Here's what I know myself to be. And then here's what I can do. And I've documented things that I can do not to like, this is not what goes on my bio when I'm introduced on a show. It's what it's like, just for me. So I know. I got this like, I know I can do this move on take next step. And then doing that in community has been the biggest thing for me though, Christine. I started a podcast called I share hope I don't I don't produce that show anymore. It's still in line, I share hope and you guys will come look at it. I got to interview 125 world leaders. And I asked them the same five questions about hope. Or they have hope. How do they use hope? Is it practical? Is it pie in the sky like what's really going on there? They told their stories. Those people I think saved my life because they let me process with them. And I picked up an enormous amount of actionable things to do to keep moving forward. And it took me a couple of years to record all that which gave me lots of time to continue working.

Christine Li  14:24  
I love your brilliance of being able to assemble a line of therapists for you or write a line of coaches a line of thinkers and feelers that you can borrow from and I think that's such a great message for our audience that you can borrow inspiration from the girl next door. The person on the podcast from Chris here today for me sometimes on the podcast, and it's okay to be mentally flexible. It's okay to train yourself to think in different And it weighs in different angles in different rooms, as Chris has said, then you're used to because the ones we were given, that's only a small house, actually. And there's just so many multitudes of ways to free yourself, if you feel that house was just a little bit too small for you, or too confining, or there was no air in that house. And I'm just so grateful to Chris for just being the vibrant self that you are and the person who's willing to share what you've learned. Also, I know that's a big part of your work, too. Would you love a comment that you chose entrepreneurship as your career as an entrepreneur myself? I do know is one of the more difficult paths emotionally, isn't it? And can you talk about that for you and how you were able to navigate that the ups and downs of entrepreneurship while also being on your self development journey?

Chris Williams  16:01  
Absolutely. And I think we can talk fear here as well. I'm a definitely have a personality that wants to run and jump off the cliff and then look for the parachute on the way down. Okay, so I'm probably not the most well thought out person before I start a new project. I'm better at that now. But 10 years ago, 20 years ago, it's hard, but made a lot of mistakes. So I think as an entrepreneur, I'm pretty far down the spectrum of ADHD. Okay, lots of hyperactivity, have a hard time in traditional settings, offices, schools, things like that. This is pretty common among entrepreneurs. I hear it's pretty common for entrepreneurs to have pretty traumatic backgrounds, or really big hardships in their life, they might not be as a child, but whatever. Because there's something it seems like there's something that happens to our brains, when we have to figure out life in a very different way to survive it. That makes us good entrepreneurs. So if that's you folks, leaning on that strength, you worked a muscle that most people don't work. Yeah, you. It sucks. But yeah, you did the workout. Let's go. So yeah, as an entrepreneur, I don't know another thing to be, I don't know where else I would fit in society. You

Christine Li  17:13  
know, and how is entrepreneurship really fit you?

Chris Williams  17:16  
It's funny, because it's giving me a place to be free for so many things I want to do I love experimenting and trying things out. And I love business, I happen to really like the machine of running businesses. So I'm I love systems, and I love people. I love teams, I love clients, it gives me a place to do all that without being told what to do by another boss. I've been an employee a couple of times for very short stents that I'm really like the worst employee ever. So you gotta find your place. You know, you're really

Christine Li  17:47  
okay. May I ask what has been maybe one of the most standout emotional hurdles you've had to work through in the entrepreneurship part?

Chris Williams  17:57  
Fear? Absolutely. I wake up frequently, with fear. That can be a 2am. Wake up. No kidding. Or it could be a six the morning when my alarm goes off, or it could be just an early afternoon. Because for anybody who's done the entrepreneurship thing, if you've like, started a business, and it just went smooth sailing, and it was perfect the whole time. Lucky you, you're literally one in a million, maybe maybe it's more rare than that. There's a lot of ups and downs. There's a lot of scary stuff that happens. A lot of scary bank statements, you look at things like that. Losing clients, whatever, this is part of the journey. So those fears are bigger in my mind that all the successes we've had. Like for real yesterday, today. Today is a Tuesday we're recording this. Yesterday on a Monday, we had an amazing Monday. Like, we had it we had a killer, like amazing day as a business. But I'm not running this morning. And I'm worried about today, like oh my gosh, we got to get so much stuff done. I'm thinking free. Could you could take the week off right now. Like, what do you what are you worried about? You know, it's just those negative things stick harder. And so I'm constantly fighting against fear. And most of that's not based in reality.

Christine Li  19:11  
Interesting, because as you were talking about that, thought while you were running, I was thinking to myself, might that be this kind of hard driving part of you, right, that maybe there's an old belief that well, you're not worth anything or you're not worth enough? If you're not killing yourself, if you're not struggling if you're not strangled by your work if you're not working over time. Is that ringing a bell?

Chris Williams  19:39  
Did you ask me on this show, so you could like help me with some therapy? Because you're so right on. You're absolutely right. Yeah, I'm uh, I'm not just a runner. I'm an ultra marathoner, right. I don't just work out I do hundreds of pull ups and push ups in my workouts. I don't just be an entrepreneur. I'm Speaking and doing all the crazy stuff to like, just go go go. And yet, I work probably 15 to 20 hours a week, I'm not a workaholic. Because I'm really good at systems. So I'll be driven at like, how little Can I work? Oh, I worked 14 hours this week, that's not good enough, I gotta be able to do it all in 12 hours. I mean, no matter what I do, it's like I put a scorecard up on it.

Christine Li  20:23  
Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. So I'm thinking two things. One, is that the way I like to work with my clients, and I think one of my core frameworks, I guess, is to encourage people to develop a calm inside, because that can oftentimes feel like the thing that's most far away, because of our training. Because of, I think the air in society, there's a stress in the air of society, even you don't have to even have a dysfunctional family to come out of high school, feeling very stressed about things and live in your future. So I like to encourage people to figure out what does call mean for them? And what is it going to feel like? And how can I learn to enjoy that? Because oftentimes, we're made to feel like oh, that means you're not doing enough, or that you're not disciplined enough, or that you forgot something over that you're lazy, all these kinds of things. And so that is my first thought. And then I forgotten the second thought, at this

Chris Williams  21:25  
point. It's really good. Like, that's helpful to me. And I noticed so many others. It's hard for me to create call. That's why I'm sure there's three breaths at the beginning of all this, were very helpful for me, I meditate pretty much every day. Are you like, try to bring those calm things in? Yes, of course, I keep score with the meditation like, I miss today. I got to do tomorrow. I know. It's horrible. But that's,

Christine Li  21:47  
well, no, no, no, it's, it's, it's your adaptations, right? It's your process of saying, I'm loving myself now. And I'm going to experiment with the things that feel better and better and better. And we're going to have flub ups on that journey of experimenting, right. And I just now remember, the second thing that I wanted to say is that just before we pressed record on this episode, I was telling Chris, how many hours I work, and that it's bordering on workaholism sometimes, and I feel like, you know, we're, we're all going to push those edges sometimes. And we're all going to kind of sometimes slip back to the parts of us that need more work. And I think part of surviving any journey, entrepreneurship, life, emotional journeys, is really having some kindness towards yourself. It's when the only voice we have in our hearts and minds is a brutal, self castigating one, that we're really in trouble. That's when we really need to, like Chris mentioned before, seek out the professional help. Because that language, and that mind frame really limits our view of life and view of possibility and view of what can happen for us. And what how much can change. Because had a few more kids, he's probably had a few more visits. It's, he's an ultra marathoner. He's changed his family relationship. And he's changed his heart and mind and he's able to share it with us on this show, which goes around the world. So thank you, Chris, for doing that work, and for letting us see inside and see where you fit in. Could you tell us how people might work with you and what you do with people in your business? Now the group coaching part?

Chris Williams  23:43  
Sure, yeah. So I run a company called group coach nation. And we teach people who are experts how to build high ticket group coaching programs, or masterminds. So you can share your advice and your expertise with a lot of people at once and make a sustainable business. That's that's how I don't have to work that much, just because it's a really great, awesome business model. So we just teach that process, we put people in groups, and we teach them how to actually build their own groups, get the prospects and get their offer ready, and actually deliver their content. And that's over group coach nation.com is the simplest place to keep up with us group coach nation.com I know some of your business folks. Some of you aren't. Because you're like, I know stuff. I wish I could monetize my expertise, my knowledge, this experience I've had in life, whatever. Check it out. There's a lot of great free resources right there for you can just kind of learn about it and understand what's going on.

Christine Li  24:33  
And you get Chris as well, which is a really big bonus. I am curious, when did you start off doing the group coaching? Is that how you got this expertise?

Chris Williams  24:43  
No, I actually went into a group therapy program for my own well being. And I was like, two or three days into it. I was like, this isn't this is really amazing. And I was asking the therapist, why is there's so much happening so fast. they're explaining the group dynamic and how this just feeds for us. Did you know that as, as individuals, we change five times faster? When we learn in groups five and some change? We're learning groups that we do one on one, and we retain that change way longer. So I thought, I wonder how to do this in a business model that I've came across masterminds, I joined a mastermind to learn, like how to do marketing. So I got and then I realized, okay, I want to start teaching, a mastermind. I did that for a few years. And then half the people who were in our mastermind said, Well, you teach us how to be the mastermind. So we started this business coach, group, Coach nation. And all we do is build masterminds no

Christine Li  25:36  
limit. I love how natural that was for you, but also part of your life journey, right? You put the effort in, and then you get the gifts back, right, you get the gifts of inspiration of your passion of the simple, easy, lucrative business that you've built, which is wonderful. So I'm so happy that it is all worked out for you. I'm so happy that you're doing the emotional work, and that you're able to share it because that is so valuable, as well. And just thank you for being here and being my friend now.

Chris Williams  26:09  
Thank you for having me. Thank you for giving me a chance to talk about this because so many people on the podcast, we used to run the ICER hope podcast, so many people like invested in me that way. So I'm so thrilled to be open and talk. We all need this. We all need to know it's okay. We're not alone. And just we got this. We got this together.

Christine Li  26:29  
We got this I often say go get them but it's the same kind of thing, right? Our listeners, Chris and I are giving you a big hug. Big support. Really go get them. You got this. You got this from inside and out. Take your time, get your inspiration, get your bearings, learn your calm, and let us know if you need us in any way. Thank you so much, Chris. I will see you again. And my dear listeners. I'm gonna see you next week when the next episode drops. Thanks so much for being here. I'm grateful for you, everybody. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. We'll talk to you soon!

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