How a Russian Pop Icon Found His True Calling with Christian Ray Flores

#181 - Christian Ray Flores' life reads like an epic novel - a childhood marked by upheaval across continents, an improbable rise to pop stardom in Russia, and a profound transformation into a purposeful coach helping others discover their untapped potential.

Growing up amid political chaos, Christian experienced firsthand what most of us only read about in history books. By age seven, he had lived through a military coup in Chile that landed his father in a concentration camp, experienced refugee life under UN protection, and witnessed civil war in Mozambique. The constant relocations forced him to absorb four languages by age nine, unwittingly preparing him for a life bridging different worlds and perspectives.

When the Soviet Union collapsed around him just as he completed his economics degree, Christian made the unconventional choice to pursue music instead of academia. His gamble paid off spectacularly. Within years, he was performing in sports arenas across 15 countries, selling millions of albums, and even creating the campaign anthem for Boris Yeltsin's pivotal election against communist forces. Yet at the pinnacle of success, he found himself clinically depressed - a paradox that would later inform his coaching philosophy.

The turning point came through spiritual transformation and marriage to an American woman who saw past his celebrity to the person beneath. After transitioning to life in America, Christian discovered his calling as a coach for high-achievers who, like his former self, might appear successful on paper while feeling incomplete or imbalanced within.

His unique approach helps clients recognize when they're "fighting with one hand tied behind their back" - achieving impressive results while leaving their most powerful gifts dormant. Through his Exponential Life coaching program, he helps entrepreneurs, executives, and creatives untie that second hand and experience breakthrough performance aligned with their deepest purpose.

What makes Christian's perspective so valuable is that he's lived at both extremes - from refugee facilities to celebrity mansions, from communist oppression to American opportunity. This journey fueled his book "Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America," which offers a refreshing immigrant perspective on American possibility in an age of cynicism.

Want to discover what might be dormant in your own life? Connect with Christian's coaching programs and begin your own journey toward exponential growth and authentic purpose.

To learn more about Christian's coaching programs and his book check out his website xponential.life. You can also follow him on Instagram @christianrayflores.

Want to be a guest on Journey with Jake? Send me a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/journeywithjake 

Visit LandPirate.com to get your gear that has you, the adventurer, in mind.  Use the code "Journey with Jake" to get an additional 15% off at check out.

Visit geneticinsights.co and use the code "DISCOVER25" to enjoy a sweet 25% off your first purchase.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From a childhood marked by upheaval in Chile and
Mozambique to rising as a popstar in Russia, christian Ray
Flores has lived a story like noother.
Today, we dive into his passionfor life, his love for America
and his journey as a life coach,helping others find resilience
and purpose in their own lives.
This is gonna be a powerfulconversation that will leave you

(00:21):
inspired.
Welcome to Journey with Jake.
This is a podcast aboutadventure and how, through our
adventures, we can.
Conversation that will leaveyou inspired, and stories from
the different adventures theyhave been on.

(00:42):
Not only will you beentertained, but you'll also
hear the failures and trialseach guest faces and what they
have done or are doing toovercome the hardships that come
their way.
My goal is to take each of uson a journey through the
experiences of my guests, withthe hope that you'll be
entertained and inspired toovercome your day-to-day
challenges.
After all, it's not all aboutthe destination as it is about

(01:06):
the journey.
Welcome back to Journey withJake.
I'm your host, jake Bushman.
Before we dive in, just a quickreminder make sure you're

(01:27):
following me on Instagram atJourney with Jake Podcast,
subscribe on YouTube and hitthat subscribe button wherever
you listen, so you never miss anepisode.
I also want to give a shout outto the Podmatch Podcast Network
for connecting me with suchamazing guests.
And don't forget, throughoutthe month of October, I'll be
releasing two episodes per week,so there's double the adventure

(01:47):
coming your way.
Today's guest, christian RayFlores, has lived a truly
remarkable journey, growing upacross Chile, mozambique and
Russia, rising to fame as a popstar and ultimately discovering
his calling as a life coach herein America.
His story is filled withresilience, transformation and a
passion for helping others livewith purpose, and if you enjoy

(02:08):
this conversation, I thinkyou'll also love episode 116
with David Allen Tracy, where weexplore his incredible journey
that led him to his role as alife coach.
Okay, let's get to myconversation with Christian Ray
Flores.
All right, I'm excited todayI've got Christian Ray Flores
joining me today.
Christian, welcome to Journeywith Jake.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Jake, I'm ready to journey with you.
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
I love it.
And, speaking of journeys,you've been on quite the journey
.
Your life has been quite thejourney.
So we're going to dive intothat.
We're going to talk about amoment in time for you too, when
you were a pop star at onepoint in Russia of all places,
in Russia of all places.
Yeah, we're going to talk alittle bit about that, but
really we're just going to kindof talk about your journey.
I know you're doing a lot ofthings now.
You're helping others, you're Ithink you're a coach and things

(02:53):
like that.
So I want to get into whatyou're doing now as well.
Before we dive into all that, Ijust want a glimpse of your,
your background, a little bit,because you know, I look at you
and I sit there and think, okay,christian Ray Flores, it's kind
of a Latino name.
I'm thinking you know.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Confusing.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, exactly.
But yeah, you lived in Russia.
So yeah, kind of give me justthe lay of the land and where
Christian was.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, and I'm legitimately confusing.
I mean even people, some peoplethat are really good friends of
mine, they can go every once ina while they go.
So how many languages do youspeak?
Or where do you exactly livewhen you are this age?
They actually forget peoplethat know me.
So it is legitimately confusing.
So basically I'm a Mott, my momis Russian, my dad's Chilean,
but I look much more Chileanthan Russian, and I mean we

(03:36):
moved to Chile when I was a baby, basically I don't know six
months old, something like thatand we were supposed to just
spend the rest of our livesthere and that would be it.
But there was a military coupthere.
A bunch of people got tortured,killed, disappeared without
anything.
My dad was put in aconcentration camp and we were
refugees.
Age five I'm a refugee in arefugee facility, you know,

(03:57):
overseen by the United Nations,and we got asylum in Germany.
We moved there.
Then we moved back to Russia,lived in poverty, moved to
Africa.
My dad got a contract there.
So I basically end up movingfour countries by age seven,
which you can imagine howconfusing that can be like in

(04:17):
very different countries.
Like everybody looks different,sounds different, languages,
are different.
I grew up there, I grew up inAfrica, and then, while we're
there, there's a civil war thatstarts, so we're like there's
bombings in the city and thingslike that and food shortages.
But it was a fun, actually afun childhood.
Regardless of as a kid there'scertain things that don't really
mess with you.
It was actually a greatchildhood growing up there.

(04:39):
Then we moved to Russia again.
This is the Soviet time sograyscale, horrible, mediocrity,
mediocrity central, that's whatI call it.
And I'm now raised from the ageof 14 by a single mom.
They got a divorce.
I sleep in the kitchen for afew years, that kind of thing.
And then I go to college.

(05:01):
I get a really good education,got a master's degree in
economics.
And then I go to college, I geta really good education, got a
master's degree in economics andliterally as I am graduating,
the whole Soviet empire comescrashing down all around us and
there was like another attemptedmilitary coup, like literally
tanks in the streets of Moscowand yeah, so it was like a
Forrest Gump type of existenceand that's where sort of the pop

(05:23):
star thing comes in.
Instead of going the expectedroute of academia or trade or
banking, whatever you know,economists go and do.
I was very musical my whole lifeand I had this as a side thing.
I was danced and sang and Ijust loved music.
I just something in me movedand I was like you know what
Everything's changing anyway,might as well try it.

(05:44):
And within you know whatEverything's changing anyway,
might as well try it.
And within you know, two, threeyears, I was basically one of
the top pop stars and acrossthat whole space, 15 different
countries, and we went from likepoor, completely like broke, to
playing sports arenas across 15countries, tv, radio, selling
millions of albums, producingother bands, that sort of thing.
So yeah, it was quite a changeand that was all happening

(06:09):
during communist times, whenthis was right after.
Right after this was literally,yeah, the whole thing collapsed,
and that's part of the reasonwhy it actually happened,
because it was actual freemarket, like there was just no
gatekeepers anymore and I justhad something that people wanted
.
It just blew up.
Wow, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah, Going back to your whole childhood, though.
I'm hearing okay, Chile andyou've.
You know, you've got a coupthere.
That's going on.
Let's see who was it.
Was that Pinochet?
Was that the Pinochet?
Pinochet Okay, that's how yousay it.
Pinot Chet yeah, yeah, that washappening there.
You're five years old.
Next thing you know you're in arefugee camp.
Do you remember any of that?

Speaker 2 (06:46):
as a five-year-old, I do I remember Actually I don't
remember anything before that,but I remember standing outside
of a soccer stadium with my mom.

(07:07):
She's talking to one of theguards, she's trying to pass
food to my dad, you know, and Ithink maybe I remember that
because I was scared, right.
Maybe that's why it has thatimprint.
And then I remember spendingsome time in the refugee
facility and it was not likethis syrian camp.
It was a, I think, like acatholic monastery type thing

(07:29):
where they had rooms for a bunchof people, one room, maybe four
or five families shared thatone room, like they had cots and
things like that.
So, yeah, but I remember thatand I remember like playing with
the kids and the around it, butthere was a big wall, there
were guards stationed aroundthat facility.
We couldn't get out.
It was actually dangerous.
So we were under the protectionof the united nations because

(07:50):
the soldiers could could arrestyou if you go out because you're
wanted for something, you knowand uh, yeah, so that's I
remember that part very well.
Did you have any siblings?

Speaker 1 (08:00):
or was it just you and mom?

Speaker 2 (08:02):
uh, my sister, yeah, my youngest sister.
She was two, she was only twooh, three, three, wow.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
So she probably doesn't remember that part at
all.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
She does not.
No, no, no, I remember itbarely.
Yeah, but she doesn't remember.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Wow, and then, of course, then you said you went,
you're in Russia, you're inother incident where the
government had some issues.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, when we came, we came right after the
Portuguese left.
So a lot of the Africancountries got their independence
in the 60s and 70s from theEuropean colonizers right, so
the colonial powers left.
It was like a chain reaction.
So the Portuguese left and thegovernment that came in was a
Marxist government, you know,and my parents were Marxists, so

(08:45):
there's networks of Marxistsand what happened is Marxists
are horrible with buildingeconomies.
They don't know how to do thatright, so they immediately did
some reforms that completelycrushed the economy and all the
Portuguese left scared and theystarted importing experts.
So my dad was one of thosepeople.
And then about a year in therewas a civil war started, you

(09:07):
know, up north.
So it was not in the capital,but there was armed guerrilla In
which what country was thisMozambique, mozambique, okay.
So yeah.
So I was growing up in thatsort of environment where, you
know, every once in a whilethere would be a bombing in a
restaurant.
They literally bombed officesacross the street from my house

(09:28):
because they belonged to the ANC, which is the African National
Congress, which is NelsonMandela's party.
So Nelson Mandela was still injail at the time and his party
was illegal in South Africa andmost of them gave it shelter,
sort of gave it refuge to hisparty.
So they had offices across thestreet from me and the south
african government sentcommandos in the middle of the

(09:50):
night like rubber boats, specialops, and they went through the
city and found and came to theplace.
They know where we're going.
They blew it up, you know.
So yeah, it was one of thoseinteresting nights.
My, my mom woke me up sayingthere's war, we need to go to
the embassy, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (10:06):
How old were you at this time?

Speaker 2 (10:09):
I was probably.
I want to say I was maybe nineor 10, something like that.
Yeah, I can look it up.
It was a well-known incidentand we couldn't open the front
door because of the explosionwave had sort of pressed it
against the frame.
It was that close, basically,to us.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
What's going through your mind as a nine-year-old?
I mean, were you scared thereas well?

Speaker 2 (10:31):
I was not actually, because I literally did not wake
up.
The explosion was so big, wasso loud that people across the
city were panicking.
Sometimes children just sleepthrough things and I just slept
through the whole thing.
My mom woke me up going packyour stuff, there's war.
It was sort of war in the sensethat it was a terrorist act.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Then you go to Russia and the Soviet Union collapses
around you.
I kind of feel like, are youbad luck?
It seems like everywhere you'regoing, I am oh yeah, totally
yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Austin Texas is definitely in trouble.
Things follow me.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
I mean that's incredible.
Chile, mozambique, russia, allof them.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, yeah, like things just, you know, collapse
basically around me.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Wow, so okay.
So I'm looking at this.
So obviously you knew spanishliving in chile, growing up
there, russian yeah, I knewspanish and russian.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
So I have actually a piece of paper in my office that
has two columns spanish words,russian words.
The first words I used Ilearned in parallel gotcha, okay
, yeah, so I learned those two.
I think I did learn a littleGerman.
We were in Germany for a littlebit, I think like a year or
something like that, but notlong enough.
I forgot it.
And then we, yeah, we arrive inMozambique and it's Portuguese

(11:56):
there.
So I was like so confused, andmy dad says that I was silent
for like a year.
I was super quiet, I was verymousy, kind of.
You know, he's like just talk,son, I'm like I don't know man,
I don't, I don't know thelanguage I've used.
So I sort of paralyzed.
And then they sent me to anafrican school, to a local
school, right away, and it wasall portuguese, all africans,

(12:20):
like there's, like I'm, I'm alatino, I'm probably.
There's probably like two orthree brown people here,
that's's it right, everybodyelse is black.
So they just threw me in thedeep, deep end of the pool.
And then, of course, I havefriends outside I played with.
So I picked up Portuguese likequickly, and then after that
this was enough for my parents.
They wanted to confuse me evenmore and they sent me to an

(12:41):
international school, which issort of where the expat kids
went, and it was all English.
So then I had to learn English,so I learned four languages by
nine, basically.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
That's incredible.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It was super confusing in themoment and frustrating to me,
but it was definitely a hugegift, because it's better to
learn a language in fullimmersion when you're young 100%
you can't unlearn it.
Yeah, and so I basically, youknow, my wife Deb gets
frustrated with me.
She was learning Russian whenshe lived there and she was like

(13:15):
why do you say it this way?
And I'm like I don't know, justbecause you say it that way,
because I never studied grammar,I just soaked it in as a kid.
I'm like I don't know, becausethat's how you say it.
And she was like, well, thisdoesn't help me at all, right, I
hate you.
Yeah, so I cheated my way tospeaking four different
languages.
It's a huge blessing, obviously, but I didn't work very hard

(13:36):
for it, I must say.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
I love it, though, but yeah, you were given a gift
of that.
At least You're going throughsome hard things.
I mean obviously with collapsinggovernments and everything else
, but at least you got that outof it All right.
So let's talk about this timein Russia then.
And you loved music.
You said you enjoyed music, soyou kind of became a pop star.
Next thing you know you'reperforming at big arenas and

(14:00):
everything else, just kind ofyeah, give me a little, tell me
a little bit about that time andwhat was going on at that time.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Well, I was sort of this.
You know, I was an outsidereverywhere.
So I felt like an outsider andI gravitated towards things that
were sort of countercultural,right.
So I started breakdancing whenI was around high school
actually, and it was like thisactual underground culture.
We literally rehearsed in likeunderground spaces, right, and
they were like I don't know,they must have been.

(14:25):
This is still behind the IronCurtain, if you think about it,
right.
So there's nothing.
There's like a wilderness ofcultural nuance and layers.
So these breakdancing peoplewere like complete
countercultural or undergroundpeople, right, and I was like,
yeah, this is it, man, and wewould like go breakdance at like

(14:46):
a pedestrian area and peoplewould give you tips, that kind
of thing.
So we did that as well.
I just loved it and I becamereally good at it because I just
loved it and I liked music andI sang.
I just loved it and I likedmusic and I started singing when
I was in Mozambique the Chileancommunity that was there they
were all expats, all refugees,and there was like 100 plus

(15:07):
families, maybe 150.
So they did everything togetherand that's where I was really
blessed with this idea ofcommunity in a way that doesn't
exist anymore in America or mostplaces, because these are all
outsiders, people who werepushed out.
Imagine the Hebrews in Babylon.
They were enslaved and theywere exiled.

(15:28):
So they probably stuck togetherpretty closely and that's how
we rolled right.
So we had parties and we'd goto the beach together with like
a ton of people, like road trips, and they had a little choir of
latin kids and we would singlike latin american classics,
like folk stuff, like colombian,brazilian, chilean, whatever,

(15:48):
and there's it was.
We had a teacher who taught ushow to sing and we would.
They discovered really early onthat I had a really good voice.
That's natural tone.
So they would give me the soloparts here and there.
I remember very distinctly howsinging made me feel it's like
time stopped.
I could do it forever, likestate of flow kind of thing, and

(16:10):
I could do it well and peopleasked me to sing.
So there's the validation,there's also the enjoyment.
So I sort of stayed in thattheme here and there.
When we moved to Russia I didn'tdo anything for a few years and
then I joined like a jazz clubalso underground stuff right
where they taught me like RayCharles and Etta James and Sarah

(16:32):
Vaughan and Billie Holiday, allthis black music, and I just
fell in love with everythingblack, essentially black music,
wise, so it's soul.
R&b, that was my jam.
R&b was my jam.
So I developed the aestheticaland vocal sort of capability to
do music that way At the time.

(16:52):
There's none of that in Russia,right?
But this was all just mefollowing, almost like an
intuition.
This is cool stuff, I love thisthing.
And so when I was graduatingcollege, I started working at
this trade company.
It was bored out of my mind.
There was an intern.
I was like man, this does notfeel right, you know, and I was

(17:13):
like, well, everything's sort offalling apart.
There's a free market, it'slike this blank slate kind of
situation.
Maybe if I try something,people will notice, right, that
was sort of the idea.
And so I found this guy who wasa.
He was a keyboard player it'sthis night restaurant and he
liked the music.
So he was introduced bymichelle.
I was like, look, I'm lookingfor someone to arrange music for
me, but I want to do dosomething different.

(17:34):
So we moved in into thisapartment.
I had a car like a horrible,horrible Soviet car, like
horrible.
So he bought food and I gavehim rides to his restaurant job.
That was our setup right.
So he took care of thegroceries, I took care of his
rides, because he was like hehad to go in the middle of the

(17:54):
night and then during the day wewould just make music.
I would just put in boys to menand bobby brown and and all
these sort of r&b pop in the 90s, right stuff michael jackson
prints and I'll be like checkthis, check out this beat, and
he would try to imitate it onhis keyboard.
And that's how we startedbasically and and we start
writing music together and thisis music that was not soviet

(18:16):
music at all.
And then, because I was a breakdancer, I could really dance
like I could really really movelike nobody could move like that
and sing and write the songs,right.
So all of a sudden I have likea little brand situation going
on, like something unique.
We've got a shot to record in astudio, which was another

(18:36):
amazing story how I got into astudio, which was impossible at
the time, and we got some demos.
And then we started doing likeI wrote a couple of songs and I
found like street dancers totrain how to actually do a
performance, because there werestreet dancers.
Street dancers is allimprovisation, right, it's not
choreographed show businessstuff.
So I basically recruited a fewof them and I'm like I'm gonna,

(18:58):
we're gonna be an act, like I'mgonna show you how to do this,
and I choreographed everything,literally everything.
I wrote the songs, I wrote thelyrics, I choreographed them, I
trained them and then we putthem in like wardrobe and
everything.
So I was very, very systematicwith it, very professional.
And then we went and we, weworked on like three songs for
six months.
It was just like everything wasa hundred percent off the

(19:23):
charts, good for the cut, forthat content.
So we went and we, weauditioned for this club.
There's this big club.
Nightclubs would start poppingup.
There was no, there was nothing.
It's a Union, right.
So all of a sudden, there's likethe first nightclubs.
One of them is called Jump andit looked like a flying saucer
because it used to be a tenniscourt and it was part of the

(19:45):
Olympic Village from theOlympics in the 80s, right, and
it was a big, big space and theycreated a club for like several
hundred people.
So it was the place.
It's where the elite went, youknow, because there was like two
or three places in the wholecity.
So we go audition there andthey hire us on the spot.
They were like you guys are off.
So we basically work four out,four nights a week or something

(20:09):
like that, there for severalmonths and it would bring new
material slowly and that's howwe started Starting in the new
clubs that are popping up inRussia.
Yeah, and because the elite isthere, everybody who's anybody
sees who you are, so we becomeinstant hits with the elite.
So I had a contract, twocompanies or three companies

(20:33):
bidding to sign me on theirlabel because we were at the
epicenter of everything.
That's basically how it started.
And then one of them was likehey, if you consider working
with us, I'll put you in the NewYear's show and the New Year's
show in Russia.
Imagine, like the what's thewhat's the American show?
The New Year's classic Americanshow is.

(20:55):
It's the bandstand, something,something.
What is it?
Dick Clark, yeah, dick.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Clark, yeah, the New Year's.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
So imagine if there's only one show for all 15
countries of the former SovietUnion that everybody watches,
and that's the Dick Clark show,Dick Clark Shaw.
Also imagine that the traditionon New Year's Eve is nothing
else but watching that stupidshow while getting drunk and
eating at home.
So the tradition for 15countries New Year's is to watch

(21:27):
one show eat and drink whilewatching the show.
That's the tradition.
Nothing else is going on,that's the tradition.
So this label puts me in thatshow and I wake up January 1st,
famous, Like it was actuallyovernight.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, that's the definition of an overnight
success right there, because youhad the attention of everybody
in all, 15 of those countries,the former Soviet Union,
watching you.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, there was no MTV.
Yet there was nothing.
There was just that one showthat everybody watches on that
one day.
So I wake up, people arepointing at me.
I'm like this is weird.
Okay, okay, all right,something's changed.
Amazing People are recognizingme in the streets Amazing, yeah,
it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
So how long were you a pop star?
For how long did this last?

Speaker 2 (22:20):
about a decade wow, okay 10 years.
Yeah, so I it was just it was aseries of hits, it it peaked,
uh, number one hit probably inthe 99 mid-1996 we.
That hit was used as the electpre-election anthem for Boris
Yeltsin's campaign against thecommunists.
A campaign for Boris Yeltsinthat was on TV, it was radio, it

(22:43):
was going on tours for himbecause the communists were
supposed to win, they werebasically about to retake power
wow, okay, I think I read aboutthat.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Was it Our Generation ?
Was that the name of that song?

Speaker 2 (23:24):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
So at this big, big, I mean itwas the biggest song because
there was a series of hits backto back to back and this one was
like epic everywhere, it was TVradio, every party, it was the
jam.
Basically that's why they usedit for their election campaign,
because it was to activate theyouth vote.

(23:45):
I did it for about a decade andthen slowly, like maybe seven
years in, I was like gosh, I'mnot feeling it, you know anymore
.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
So I slowly transitioned out, kind of going
back to the whole.
You know the Boris Yeltsinthing and you know you said you
kind of you helped him out, soto speak.
You know campaign for him andthis journey with Jake by no
stretch is a political type show, but you lived under that
communist reign so you kind ofknew what that was.
So for you that must have beenreally important then to go out

(24:17):
of your way for that.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Oh yeah, and we were taking a lot of risks to
campaign, because if thecommunists won, losing my career
was probably the least riskything, yeah, the least of it.
It would have been worseprobably, but I was.
You know, when you're in your20s you're feeling destructible.
You're like, yeah, whatever youknow.
But I did have very strongfeelings about it and the thing

(24:39):
is I grew up in that environment.
My parents were Marxist and Istudied Karl Marx.
I'm an economist, right, I havea master's degree in economics.
I actually read the thing,brought papers on it and I lived
it and it's an evil, evilsystem.
You know, I had very strongfeelings about that kind of
oppressive ideology and I stilldo actually.

(25:03):
So you know, part of the reasonI wrote a book called Little
Book of Big Reasons to LoveAmerica, partially to highlight
so it's an optimistic book aboutwhy America is an extraordinary
country from an immigrantstandpoint, but partially to
also say, hey, you guys areflirting with socialism, please
don't do it, it's not going tohelp you.
Okay, america is flirting withsocialism openly.

(25:24):
So this is pretty mainstreamand to me that really does
concern me.
So I'm a nonpolitical personcompletely, until the topic is
the concern is evil or good.
You know, like when somethingis evil, I will actually speak
up.
You know which is what I didduring the Boris Yeltsin years.

(25:48):
I basically became fairly vocaland picked a side because I
felt it was evil.
Same thing with the Ukraine war.
We did a lot of work for therefugees in Ukraine because I
felt this is not nuanced, thisis evil in Ukraine.
Because I felt it was this isnot nuanced, this is evil, and I

(26:09):
can't even go back to Russiabecause of it, because there's
definitely a risk of beingarrested there for the support
of Ukrainian refugees, that sortof thing.
But it was sort of a patternwith me, like when I see
something black and white, I'mgoing to take a stand, basically
.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
No, I admire that about you.
I think that's important.
I'm glad you did that.
No, I admire that about you, Ithink that's important, I'm glad
you did that.
So you kind of start, you know,just not feeling it anymore.
Was it difficult to kind of say, okay, I'm going to let go of
this fame and kind of dosomething else?
I mean, what did you want to doand how?

Speaker 2 (26:38):
I felt, yeah, it was very intuitive, it was
definitely irrational, right,clearly, because people were
like seriously, dude, dude, likewhat's the percentage of
musicians?
Musicians can actually dream ofthis and then live this out
like it's like 0.1 percent maybe.
But I I became a christian inthe moment, right before that,
and I was like I want to do somechristian like ministry work, I

(27:02):
want to do philanthropic work.
There's layers to the feeling,right.
I also felt like I have gearsto me that are not really
utilized in being a pop star inRussia.
I grew up all over the world.
I speak four languages.
I have a master's degree ineconomics.
None of those things are reallyactivated in me.

(27:24):
They're dormant.
I was just like, yeah, this isgreat.
I just I'm just not that guy.
I'm not that guy who spends,you know, maybe, a decade doing
hits and then another threedecades playing the decade, the
hits that he wrote, you know,when you were in 20, 25 to 30 or
35.
I'm just not that guy and Ihave massive respect for people

(27:48):
who that's the only thing theywant to do.
I have tons of friends who aresort of my peers in that space
who are still playing big, bigvenues, huge venues.
They're still very popular andI love them and we're friends.
But it was just not for me.
It was just I felt limited bythat sort of potential.
That trajectory, it just wasn'tfor me.
It was just I felt limited bythat, by that sort of potential,
that trajectory, it just wasn'tfor me.

(28:10):
I went, I went to explore otherthings.
How?

Speaker 1 (28:13):
did you end up getting to America?

Speaker 2 (28:16):
I had no intention.
Although I loved America fromafar many, many years, I married
an American and even when Imarried an American she moved to
me, not me to her, you know.
So we spent our kids were bornthere and everything.
And my wife, deb, she's fromWisconsin.
She was in LA when we met andshe literally sold everything

(28:36):
and moved to Moscow, learned thelanguage and everything.
So we were not really intending.
But then, a few years in, twokids in her health was sort of
the climate was really notjamming with her health.
She has some autoimmune issuesand I looked at her and we had
this one.
She was sick like a dog man, itwas just all the time.
And we went to Spain.

(28:58):
We had some friends who had avilla in Spain and they said,
hey, why don't you come and hangout with the villa for a month,
month and a half or somethinglike that?
And we're like that soundsgreat, and we had a one-year-old
at the time.
So we went and we spent time ina warm place and her health
improved dramatically instantlyand I was like, oh, okay.
So I basically was like, look,I can't really imagine you

(29:22):
barely sort of surviving in aclimate that's not good for you.
We need to just go, you know,and that's what we did.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Wow.
Okay, so your wife was a bigreason why you.
But I think it's amazing,though, that she was like, yeah,
I'm going to go go with you.
So were you in your pop starmode when you met her then in LA
?
I mean, was that kind of howyou met her?

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I still was.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Okay, all right.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
But it was great for me because I, you know, one of
the big things that was veryhard to do when everybody knows
who you are, is you don't knowif somebody who wants to date
you dates you for the persona orthe person right.
So like it was just veryconfusing and it's just
genuinely painful actually, youknow, because you just don't
know and there's so much atstake if you're trying to

(30:07):
actually find a wife and that'swhat I wanted and she happened
to be American, so she didn'tcare, like she didn't have that
emotional connection to the popstar piece.
On top of that, another benefitis that she actually used to
work for MTV VH1.
She works with way bigger starsthan I was.
You know.
She would hang out with EricClapton for four days, so for
her it was nothing, it's justChristian.

(30:29):
It's like I'm just a provinciallittle singer from out there
somewhere, right?
So to me that was fantasticbecause I knew she wanted.
She was interested in me, notthe persona, right, so it was
very attractive that part.
And then, of course, she's anincredible person.
So we've been married now for26 years.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
Amazing Congratulations 26 years.
I'm 26 years married as well,so that's awesome, very cool,
yeah.
And is it daughters?
You have daughters.
What do you have?

Speaker 2 (30:59):
I have three daughters Diana's 30.
Violeta is 23.
And Isabella is 21.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Congratulations.
Very nice Family of daughtersyou got to love it.
That's great I have.
I had three sons and then Ifinally had a daughter.
So I kind of went the oppositeway as well.
I wasn't sure I was ever goingto get that girl.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
I broke the pattern.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, it's amazing, that'sgreat.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
My wife tells me that some men need a team, some men
need a fan club.
I need a fan club.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
That's what you need.
So your life, you know you'rethe whole pop star thing but
you've kind of you've switchedinto.
You said you want to getinvolved in a little bit of you
know with your Christian faithand some philanthropy and things
like that.
I read somewhere that you knowyou.
You said that, yeah, you loveJesus and that you still keep
the Sabbath.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
I do.
Yeah, well, that's actually arediscovered thing.
Like 15 years ago I discoveredthe Sabbath.
No one ever told me that theSabbath is a thing that could be
active.
Now, right, and I was like, ohmy gosh, this is crazy and like
changed my life really.
So we do practice the Sabbath,not in a very not in sort of
this very traditional way whereyou can't like turn on a light

(32:08):
or something like that, but wedo take a full day of rest and
it's incredible.
Yeah, what has that done foryou?
People think it's like to restfrom a weary sort of week, so to
say.
I find it to be an energizerfor the week that's coming.
So you're filling your tankswith creativity and joy and

(32:30):
gratitude and just this vitality, you know, and then you sort of
explode into the next week, andthat's sort of how it feels to
me and also it's a great, it's avery humbling practice, because
what you're doing is you'rebasically saying with all of
yourself, not justintellectually but physically,

(32:53):
by ceasing production, so to say, right, you're saying I'm not
actually in control and God isin control, he is the provider
and the source of all things.
So I'm going to actuallycelebrate that for a day, and
it's crazy what that does to youfrom the inside out.
Right, you go huh, I can do.
I can actually I'm not incontrol.

(33:14):
Actually, I want to be, but I'mnot, and let me just live like
I'm not in control and see howthat feels, and it's very
liberating.
That's how I feel about it.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
It's an interesting way to look at it and I think
you know you look at today andhow things are today and
everyone's so busy and everyonefeels like they've got to be
productive all the time, andeven on the Sabbath or whatever.
And that's nice, that you findthat moment.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly.
And there's something veryempowering in it Because, like,
if you think of the origin storyof the Sabbath, right, it was
given to the Jews when they weretaken out of slavery in Egypt,
and in Egypt their worth wasdefined by how many bricks they

(33:59):
could produce for Pharaoh.
That's what defined their worth.
And the Sabbath is saying no,my worth is inherent in me, it's
not by how much I produce, andto me, that's a powerful
paradigm if you reallyinternalize that, because
America is very much aboutproducing, and that actually

(34:20):
takes away from your ability tocreate something extraordinary
and to be in a sort ofcounterintuitive way.
You're actually less productiveif all you are is producing.
You're much more than just aproducing machine, right, you're
a creator yourself.
So the idea of, no, I'm not myjob, I'm not what I produce,

(34:43):
it's not about the bricks, it'sabout who I am created to be.
So you pause and you thinkabout it all day, one day a week
, and then you get way moreempowered, way more inspired,
and then you actually producebetter things as a result of it,
which is kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
And you're right it is.
It's counterintuitive.
You think well, if I'm notproducing, then I'm not, but yet
it does something for you andit does help you.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
It does yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, I love talking to you because I can tell this
is what you do, because I knowyou're, I know you're a coach
and you you help others.
How did you get into that fieldof doing that and it?
I mean, I'm you're helping meright now with what you're
saying, so I love this.
So, yeah, how did you getinvolved with with that?

Speaker 2 (35:26):
sort of the origin of it initially was because I was
like probably the I'm in the topyou know, 0.5 percent of
musicians doing the thing that Iwas doing and so I am
legitimately able to have thecapability to be that.
And then internally I'mclinically depressed at the peak
of my career and I realized youcan be literally the top in

(35:50):
something and also at the bottomof something else and the thing
that you're at the bottom ofcan actually start affecting the
top thing that you worked sohard to be, to do and to achieve
and undermine your capability.
Even there it catches up withyou and you need other people
and you have flat sides and youhave to humble out and have
wisdom in your life and havesomebody guide you.

(36:10):
So I met this guy and thereason I discovered that really
stumbled upon it literally outof despair was that I met this
guy who was a Canadianmissionary and he didn't care
who I was because he's Canadian.
He was like I don't follow thiskind of stuff, like I don't
know who you are, and that's howI became a Christian.
I was completely anti-Christian,very much, I was sort of new

(36:34):
agey, but I was moreintellectually arrogant than
anything else, like whateverorganized religion is for losers
and for weak people.
That was basically my, my setup.
Intellectually, that's what Iwas this guy.
He had character traits and hehad a family.
That was just a beautifulfamily and I come from three
generations broken homes.
So I was depressed because I'dmessed up another relationship.

(36:57):
We had a daughter from anotherrelationship.
She cut me off.
I was a complete idiot and jerkhow I treated her the
girlfriend that I had at thetime and I was just heartbroken,
just completely devastated bythe loss.
And this guy had this familyand I'm like I don't know
anybody, I don't know how to dothis.
I want this and I don't knowhow to do this and I'm literally

(37:21):
sort of.
Tens of thousands of peoplechant the songs that I wrote,
you know, sing them back to methe road, in my kitchen, on the
subway and I can't make arelationship work.
You know I'm broken.
That's basically how I felt.
I realized that so manysuccessful people are broken,
they feel broken.
I realized that so manysuccessful people are broken,
they feel broken and on paperthey look like everybody's dream

(37:42):
life, but inside they have avery different situation going
on, because I'm that guy right.
And then, andy, this guy I met.
I'm like, how do I get what youhave?
And he goes, I can teach you ifyou want to listen.
And I'm like, yeah, teach me.
And the smartest thing I did isto humble out and be coached by
someone.
And this guy fixed me.

(38:05):
There's no better, not a betterway to say it.
And I'm like, so I could do allthe things that I was so good
at so much better, because I wasmuch more balanced.
All these weak spots and blindspots were gone, and I come from
three generations of brokenhomes.
I've been married for 26 years,so happy.
I have a great marriage.
And it all started because I wascoached by someone and I was

(38:27):
humble enough to listen and hewas generous enough to offer me
guidance.
So that's why I coach now isthat?
I was like, what, what is that?
This one person can change thedirection of your life and even
if you're good at something,you're really bad at other
things, you know.
So maybe that can be fixed.
And I started doing it for otherpeople completely informally.

(38:49):
Right, I just happened to be inthat mode.
I was so grateful.
So I started mentoring otherpeople and because I was in
those circles.
I was like mentoring some highlevel people like Olympic
athletes and artists and fashiondesigners and entrepreneurs and
this is the 90s in Russia, sothat included mafia members,
actually, because it was normalto be associated with mafia at

(39:11):
the time.
So I would basically talk tomafia people and say, hey, you
need to stop doing this thing,and they would get super upset
at me and they would stopactually Not all of them, but
some of them and they would belike, all right, I'm out.
I'm like, oh my gosh, this iscrazy, right?
So still, some of my bestfriends were people who were
like actual criminals andRussian mafia people.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Wow, that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
It is yeah.
So then I thought when I movedto the US I was like this was a
long time ago, 21 years ago Imoved to the US and I thought
this will stop.
Maybe because I was just aknown person there, this would
stop the mentoring, the coachingthing.
And it didn't.
In the US I sort of attractedsort of these high achievers
because they could feel that Iknow them from the inside out,

(39:59):
you know, and I could help them.
And I did it, also informally,for a number of years and then
eventually I was like I mean,this is clearly a pattern, okay.
Like maybe this is something Icould do in the season of life
you know.
So I'm like, all right, how doI do this exactly?
Because I did it veryintuitively, right.
I'm like, okay, let me, what isit?

(40:24):
What are the steps?
Right?
So I started organizing thesethings into a program and then
to something more structuredthat I can deliver and walk
people step one, step two, stepthree.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
So eventually it became sort of a real thing that
I'm now essentially most of mytime is spent with the coaching
and if someone's listeningbecause I mean I'm curious now
and they want your services orwhatever, what's the best way to
do that?
Is there a website to go?

Speaker 2 (40:45):
to what's the best way to get in touch with you.
Yeah, you, basically, yeah you.
You go to exponentiallife,which is the website, and
exponential, the idea is thatyou, as a human being, have an
exponential potential and mostpeople just don't, they just
don't tap into that, and that tome, that's like the biggest
tragedy, right, because ithappened to me.
I was like, look, who am I?
I'm an immigrant, I'm a refugee, like I'm really not in an

(41:07):
advantageous place and I can docertain things and change the
way I see the world and I canaffect millions of people.
I mean that's just crazy, right, but I see that potential of
people.
I mean that's just crazy, right, but I see that potential in
people.
So maybe that's one of the giftsthat I have is that when I talk
to someone, I decide to workwith them and they decide to
work with me.
I believe in them more thanthey believe in themselves, and

(41:28):
I see where they can go and Ican guide them there, right.
So that's sort of part of the.
I think that's why you know and, yeah, so they can go to
exponential the, the.
The word is spelled without thee starts with x okay, it starts
with x.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Okay, and I'll put this.
I'll put this in the show notestoo, for everybody, so if
anyone wants to, to do itdefinitely yeah, so that's.
That's most of my time and Iwould spend with exponential can
you give me an example and youdon't have to use names or
anything, but you kind ofmentioned, like some of the
mafia guys, but maybe an exampleof a client and kind of where
they were at and kind of wherethey're at today?

Speaker 2 (42:03):
oh, there's, yeah, there's countless right.
I'll give you like a samplerright of of different kinds.
So let's, let's, let's do acomplete random sampler from
memory.
So this one guy who I workedwith, he's a young, young, young
, young, young, young, youngreal estate executive and he's
worked in the and he just feltfeels trapped in the corporate,

(42:24):
sort of just very cold, veryimpersonal.
He likes the space, he doesn'tknow what to do with it.
And he basically went throughmy program and he was like, look
, I was coasting, a coastingcorporate and now I'm a I think
he said inspired entrepreneur orsomething like that, because he
sort of reworked how he wantsto do even be in this business.

(42:45):
He thought he was not going tobe in the business anymore and I
we worked together like okay,here here are your gifts that
are really completelyunderutilized in the, the, the
way that you're doing it rightnow.
This is how you can change thatand you and you will go through
the roof.
So it's sort of this idea ofyou're undervalued and you sort

(43:06):
of know like there's more to methan what's happening here.
I know there's more but I don'tknow what to do with that and
basically the idea is that youcan really, first of all, find
your edge, then know what to dowith that edge in the space that
you're in, become well-known,right?
So it could be about highperformance, it could be about

(43:26):
personal brand, but that's oneexample.
High performance example thisgentleman who is managing.
He's a finance guy.
He manages billions, billionsand billions, and so we get to
know each other through somemutual friends and he has all
kinds of stuff that is justinternal stuff.
He's incredible.
He's a spiritual man, a familyman, astronomically successful,

(43:52):
but there's some emotional stuffgoing on that really undermines
the high performance the highperformance gets.
He goes down a lot, you know,and we've been working together
for now almost a decade, and sowe have a rhythm.
That's like a high performancemode where he just he's, I'm the
one who he calls when thingsfeel like the sky's falling, and

(44:15):
I know everything about him,right, his kids, his story story
, his backs, his origin story,his childhood story, his trauma,
his success, everything.
So that's that's our operatingmode.
Is this really more highperformance, not personal brand
mode?
But I can, you know, and he'slike, anywhere I am every,
anywhere he is, he'll probablytext me three, four times a week

(44:36):
.
Hey, here's what I'm doing,here's what I'm feeling.
You know, what do you think?
That kind of thing.
So that's like another example.
But that's like elder statementlevel type of person, right.
So there's a and everything inbetween.
Right, it could be an athlete,it could be.
I have this incredible guy whowas a banker, vp of a bank, and

(44:58):
the guy's just the full package,and he discovers that he's
doing, you know, the other day Ihad this conversation with him
and I go he's in the sort ofpersonal brand, in high
performance, hybrid, sort ofthat's the goal.
He's entering a new job, vp ofa bank.
I'm like, okay, how much areyou making?
How much do you want to make?
And I go okay, so what are thethings that are dormant in you?

(45:24):
In this particular thing, youhave an edge that is literally
not being implemented and you'restill winning.
And I'm like, do you realizethat?
Like, imagine, not yourcompetitors, but people that are
on your level.
Like, imagine the you're notyour competitors, but people
that are your own level, on your, on your level, and they're
fighting with two hands.
Like they're fighters andyou're fighting on their level,

(45:45):
but one of your hands is tiedbehind your back.
And I go and he goes.
What do you mean?
I said how many people do youtalk every week?
Like you know 50.
He goes.
Yeah, I said you know thatyou're a professional
communicator.
He's a speaker, professionalcommunicator.
He's a speaker, professionalcommunicator and he's a mentor.
He's like mentored NFL playersand things.
It's like he's incredible withpeople.
Those two dimensions are theyactivated in your VP in the bank

(46:08):
role?
He goes no, I said you'reliterally, you're winning with
one hand.
What we're going to do is we'regoing to untie your second hand
and see what happens, and I'lltell you how to do that, you
know.
So those are the conversationsI have, like every week.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Yeah, that's, that's incredible.
What has that done for you whenyou, when you get to see
somebody who kind of turned thatcorner and you see it happening
, what does that do for you?

Speaker 2 (46:40):
I just it, just it's, it's, it's.
You know how I said when I wasa kid I would sing and and like
everything stopped.
That's how it feels.
It feels like gosh.
This is awesome, you know, likemagic that's how it feels.

Speaker 1 (46:51):
I love it.
This has been, this has beenamazing.
Thanks for sharing this.
I kind of want to end on on.
You mentioned it earlier.
You mentioned your book, LittleBook of Big Reasons to Love
America.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
So yeah, tell me, why did that come about?
What was the point of that?

Speaker 2 (47:05):
I'm this very.
I'm a huge fan of America,right.
So I like the backstory, right.
If you think about it, I'm inMozambique.
It's like one of the poorestcountries in the world.
We have no television.
There's no television.
It's a Marxist state.
There's food rations, right.
It's a beautiful place.
So as a child I'm having fun.

(47:31):
And then my dad gets a TV setand gets an antenna that gets
like South African television.
They will broadcast Americanshows.
So I'm in this place of nothingand through my little TV set I
see this world where people goon cruises and there's high
rises and they wear clothes.
I'm like cruise.
I don't know anybody who's everbeen on a cruise.
You know what I'm saying.

(47:53):
It's like a different universe.
So that was sort of the firstimpression.
Then, over time, I startlearning through reading.
I'm very, very curious, agracious reader, about
biographies and lives and sortof the spirit of America, that
ethos, that culture, that drivefor success, for winning, for

(48:13):
creativity, for freedom.
And I live in a place that iscompletely unfree.
There's no upward mobility whenI was in the Soviet Union.
There's entrepreneurship it'sactually illegal and we're still
entrepreneurs.
We're like going to Germany,crossing over to West Germany,
getting computers, selling it inthe black market.
That's how we make our money,because we defy the limitations.

(48:34):
As a family, we're like we'renot going to be those cogs,
we're not going to be slaves.
We, a family, we're like we'renot going to be those cogs,
we're not going to be slaves,we're going to risk it and we're
going to be entrepreneurs.
You know, and still we werepoor.
But by local we were likepretty well off.
You know, local measure,because everybody's poor and so
that's.
Those are sort of the thingsthat trickle in right eventually
.
And then I used to like doodlein my, my class.

(48:56):
I was so bored in Sovietclasses because there were
things so rigid and you wearuniforms, and so I'd doodle
logos of Adidas.
I liked the logo for Kiss, theband with the double S, with the
lightning, so I would just dothat.
So I had this drive for thatkind of thing.

(49:16):
They represented something forme possibility, right,
creativity, excellence.
But I knew when I was drawingthese things in my notebook that
I would probably never seeMichael Jackson, who is my idol,
live.
I would never be at a KISSconcert or never, like I
wouldn't probably wear Adidas.
Maybe I could get Adidas in theblack market.

(49:37):
That was probably the bestthing I could imagine.
Right, that kind of thing,right?
So fast forward a few years andmy point is the reason I tell
you this is sort of thebackstory of why I have a love
for the American spirit thatcreates an ecosystem where
people think possibility.
Because I started thinkingpossibility because of that,

(49:58):
because I would see shows, Iwould read books, I would listen
to music in a place that has nopossibility.
And then you fast forward a fewyears later and I have an
endorsement deal with Adidas.
There's a poster of Adidas inevery store in that whole space.
I have an endorsement deal withHead Shoulders.
There's commercials running ina variety of different languages
across 15 countries.

(50:18):
Endorsement deal with what wasit?
I organize, I hang out, I do ashow and Chaka Khan is playing
and I'm playing on the samestage, and then we're hanging
out together.
In which universe right?
I do it.
We do this big charity show, westarted doing philanthropy and
Michael Jackson came to my event, to my event.
He comes to my event because ofthe thing that I built Like.

(50:42):
I moved to the States and Istart a company in LA, a
production company doing musicand music videos, and I'm
producing Eastern European bandsin Hollywood because they
wanted some higher end stuff.
And I'm sitting in the studioof Kiss.
I hired the producer who didPsycho Circus for Kiss to do my

(51:04):
whole album and I hired one ofthe guitar players for Kiss to
do a solo for me.
So to me, that's America right.
And then, you know, 2020 comesalong.
I already live here.
I see people complaining aboutAmerica and America bashing.
I already live here.
I see people complaining aboutAmerica and America bashing.
There's like this, really, riseof self-loathing and guilt and
shame.
And I'm not againstself-criticism.

(51:26):
That's part of America iscriticizing yourself and being
better and criticizing yourgovernment.
That's our duty, our obligationas Americans.
Right, I've been a citizen fora long time.
But when people start bashingtheir own, the country that gave
them everything and gave theworld so much, that ticks me off
.
You know, and I think so, it'snot an angry book, it's an

(51:51):
actually it's an ultraoptimistic book, because I'm
basically have 10 chapters, 10reasons to love America, as a
refresher from the perspectiveof an immigrant who grew up in
places of oppression no freedom,no pursuit of happiness,
poverty, right and I'm like,seriously Like let's just look

(52:15):
at the.
Let's be optimistic for aminute there, you know.
So that's the book.
I love that.
That's amazing that for aminute there.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
So that's the book.
I love that.
That's amazing that you've donethat.
You've lived in so many places,different spheres, different
things that you've done impactedcountless lives.
Looking ahead, what kind oflegacy do you hope to leave?
And then, what does the futurehold for you?

Speaker 2 (52:37):
That's a good question.
You know, I really want tobuild up this coaching thing
into, you know, a tribe, and itdoesn't matter if it's a couple
hundred people or a few thousandpeople, quite frankly, you know
, as long as it's the rightpeople.
And I just want to build up atribe, a community of people who
know what they were built to do, they were created to do, and

(53:00):
they courageously pursue thatand have to have more income,
more impact.
These are free people, theseare people who want to live in
alignment with what they werecreated to be.
You know, and that's one piece.
I think that's really importantfor me and I feel like that's
going to have sort of thisripple effect, this domino
effect, because the people thatI help, they help many, many

(53:23):
other people and then thosepeople help other people.
The other thing is reallyremembering the poor.
So philanthropy is pretty muchon my heart still.
So I have this academy inMozambique that I started, also
as an American.
I'm like I have an idea, I haveno money and I'm going to find
every piece, the people, themodel, and all of a sudden it's

(53:44):
there now for several years,right, and it's functioning.
So I want to build sort ofthese sustained efforts to serve
the poor and you know my focalpoint, because there's poor
people everywhere and needypeople everywhere.
But in Mozambique I know thebackstory and I know that that
particular set of people.

(54:04):
There's an economic ladder thatyou can climb and I believe
everybody should climb aneconomic ladder, but there are
places and people where thepeople there can't even reach
the bottom rung.
So those are the people that Iwant to focus on.
I don't want to give them fish,I want to teach them how to
fish.
But I want to teach them how tofish.
How do you get to the bottomrung so they can climb?

(54:26):
So I have these kids who have nocomputers in their school and
they're taught computer literacyand some skills.
They have no access to anyonewho is successful.
They don't know anyone, not oneperson and they're mentored by
like middle-class Mozambicanswho are professionals, so they
can see themselves in them.
They have no language, englishlanguage skills and they're

(54:48):
being taught language.
So all these three things Ibelieve are will get them to the
bottom rung when they canactually climb.
So maybe by the age thatthey're maybe 15, 16, they
actually have some marketableskill.
Marketable skills you caneither go to college or just
start a career without college,but they will get themselves out
of poverty and that's sort ofthe idea.

(55:08):
So my goal one of the legacythings is that I just want to be
able to do that with four morepeople get more partners, people
who want to do it with me,finance, organize that kind of
thing.
That's basically it.
Those are the things that Ifeel like I can.
I can very easily do this foranother 20 years.
Be very happy doing it.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
This has been fascinating, learning your
journey and who you are.
You know I go into theseconversations sometimes and I'm
not sure where it's going to goand I I'd like to do my little
research on who the person isI'm going to be talking to and I
mean you're so much more than Ieven thought you were.
So I appreciate you you sharingwho you are.
I want to end my our oursession today with a question I

(55:51):
ask everybody journey with Jake.
It's adventure, but it's alsoyour journey.
We really dove into yourjourney and who you are.
But for you, christian, whatdoes adventure mean to you?

Speaker 2 (56:00):
That's a great question.
I think my sort of perspectiveis all of us know, there's a
deep knowledge in all of us ofwhat we're supposed to do, and I
think the ultimate adventure isactually accepting that,
hearing that voice and going anddoing it.
That's the adventure, that'sthe thing that scares us,

(56:21):
because what if we fail right?
And to me that's like thegreatest tragedy is when you
know the voice is there.
You hear it and you just shutit down and you ignore it for a
year, a decade, two decades.
You know, and to me you know,you know exactly what you're
supposed to be doing, or atleast in broad strokes just go

(56:43):
do it, have that adventurebeautifully said.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Thank you so much, christian.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Thank you for coming on journey with jake it's been
great to be on the journey withyou, jake a huge thank you to
christian ray flores for joiningme today and sharing his
incredible journey.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
If you'd like to learn more about Christian's
coaching programs or grab a copyof his book, be sure to visit
his website exponentiallife.
And that's with an X.
I've also included a link inthe show notes for you and to
all of you listening.
I just wanna say how much Iappreciate you.
Thank you for tuning in weekafter week.
If you've been enjoying Journeywith Jake, I'd love it if you

(57:20):
could leave a rating and reviewand share the show with a friend
who might need a littleinspiration.
That's how this communitycontinues to grow.
Be sure to join me next timewhen my guest will be Chalky
White.
From a troubled childhood tobecoming a successful ski
instructor and author, chalky'sstory is full of resilience and
transformation and I can't waitto share it with you.
Until then, keep chasing yourown adventures and remember it's

(57:42):
not always about thedestination as it is about the
journey.
Take care, everybody.