March 4, 2025 • 49 mins
Dive into a compelling conversation with Chris Widener, a celebrated motivational speaker and author, as he shares his transformative journey through leadership, excellence, and service. From his childhood experiences as a ball boy for the Seattle Supersonics, Widener draws upon powerful life lessons that shaped his understanding of true leadership—serving and uplifting others. He emphasizes that excellence is not just a goal but a moral obligation for all.
In this episode, listeners will hear about Chris’s encounters with NBA legends like Dennis Johnson, who exemplified servant leadership by helping an 11-year-old keep his job. This story serves as a foundational pillar for understanding the core message of Widener's work: to lead effectively, one must hold oneself to a higher standard and serve with humility and generosity.
Additionally, Chris discusses his influential books, including "The Art of Influence," where he intertwines personal narratives with essential lessons about integrity, optimism, and the importance of serving others. His latest work, "The Coming American Revival," calls for a spiritual awakening within the church, igniting conversations around the need for renewed faith and cultural influence among believers.
As you listen, consider the powerful advice to “be a voice, not an echo,” a poignant reminder to cultivate authenticity and influence in your leadership style. Join us for an enlightening discussion that reinforces the idea that true excellence manifests through loving service and intentional actions that empower those around us. Don't miss out on this opportunity to explore the depths of leadership with Chris Widener—subscribe, share, and engage with the timeless wisdom uncovered in this episode!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I believe that every human being is created in the
image of God, and the image ofGod is excellence.
There's nothing in God that isanything less than perfection,
and every single one of us isgiven gifts and talents in which
we can exhibit excellence.
And I believe that whatever wedo, whatever we say, whatever we
write, whatever we think,should be set up against the
(00:22):
standard of excellence.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hey, uncommon Leaders , welcome back.
This is the Uncommon LeaderPodcast and I'm your host, john
Gallagher, today.
I've definitely got an uncommonleader for us today.
I'm going to read down just alittle bit of some of the, if
you will, statistics for thisindividual that are going to tee
it up for the greatconversation we're going to have
today.
Chris Widener is one of the top50 speakers in the world.
(00:52):
He's in the MotivationalSpeaker Hall of Fame.
He's been named by SuccessMagazine as one of the top 10
sales speakers and I know heprobably gets tired already.
He's like John, we don't needto talk about this but Inc
Magazine is one of the top 100leadership speakers in the world
.
He's recognized for that andhe's written 25 books, which is
really what we're here to talkabout today in terms of learning
(01:12):
about him.
Not all 25.
We'll never get through all ofthose, but I'm even interested
in some of his favorite storiesabout those he's mentored and
been mentored by, and that'sJohn Maxwell, zig Ziglar and Jim
Rohn.
So, looking forward to theconversation today, chris Weiner
, welcome to the Uncommon LeaderPodcast.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Thanks for having me.
And you know I got to tell youI must've sent you an old bio
because three days ago I wasnamed the 17th best sales
speaker in the world by GlobalGurus, which is a big worldwide
sort of speaker monitoring kindof thing.
It was a total shock.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I just I got an email said hey, we just named you
that I'm like I'll take itExcellent.
Well, that's you're talkingabout 2,500 times.
You've spoken all over theworld, so that's probably been a
few more since you wrote thatas well.
So I can understand how, if youcan do it that many times,
you're going to get really goodat it.
One of the coaches that I havesays if you want to get great,
he says you do the firstthousand of them, you're really
(02:02):
bad, and then you get reallygood after that.
So I think I got about 992 leftto go in terms of speeches, but
we'll see how that goes.
So, hey, I'll start you offwith the first question.
I always start my first timeguests and it's really great to
have you on the show.
But tell me a story from yourchildhood that still impacts who
you are today, as a person oras a leader.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
So I had the great fortune at the age of 11 to
become a ball boy for theSeattle Supersonics and I spent
seven years working in the NBA.
The first two years I was inthe Sonics locker room.
The second, third or the third,fourth and fifth I was in the
visiting team locker room, andthen the last two years of high
school I was in the Sonicslocker room again, and my very
first year here I am 11 yearsold.
(02:48):
My very first year I fell off aroof and I broke both of my
arms and so I literally hadcasts on my arms like this.
And I went to work at a gameand I walked in and Frank
Furtado was our trainer.
He was the former wrestlingcoach from Seattle Pacific and I
(03:10):
was terrified of Frank.
He was my boss and I'm 11 yearsold and he was taping the
ankles of Dennis Johnson, dj.
Most people don't know DJ Forthe Sonics.
They know him as on those greatCeltics teams.
In fact, larry Bird calledDennis Johnson the greatest
teammate I ever played with, andDJ was not famous.
Yet.
This was the first year weended up losing the World
(03:32):
Championship that year to theWashington Bullets at the time
in seven games.
The second year we won theWorld Championship against the
same Bullets in five games.
So at the age of 13, I had thehighlight of my career.
I was in a ticker tape paradewith 500,000 people as part of
an NBA championship team.
I'd be like, where do you gofrom here?
Right, how do you ever top this11 years old?
(03:53):
Yeah, I'm done, I've lived it.
But the story that profoundlyimpacted me was I came walking
into the thing arms in casts andthey both kind of laughed at me
at first, like what happened toyou?
We ended up and I said can Ikeep my job?
And Frank said you can keepyour job if you can do your job.
And I said, okay.
(04:16):
Well, one of my jobs was tomake the five-gallon jugs of
Gatorade and water one Gatorade,one water and to haul them 500
yards to the court.
So I'm like, oh boy, how am Igoing to do this?
And we didn't have carts at thetime.
So I go into the room where wefilled them and you know I had.
We had these paint sticks.
You know clean paint sticksthat I stir them with.
So here I am, stirring a wedgetinto my hands, I'm stirring it
up, and while I'm stirring it up.
(04:38):
Dj, now done with getting hisankles wrapped, he comes into
the room and he says hey, tellyou what, wait for me and I'll
walk out to the court with you.
And I said okay.
So I drag these things, one ata time with both hands, drag
them like this, and I'm 11.
I'm like maybe not even fivefeet tall at this point.
I go out the main door into thehallway and I sit down on top of
(05:02):
one of them and I wait for DJ.
He said you want to walk out tothe court with me?
Okay, dj comes walking out witha basketball to do the shoot
around.
This is before many of the fanshave gotten there.
They go shoot around, then theycome back and then they do
their team layup things.
You know, you know that way.
So anyway, I'm sitting there,he walks out, he hands me the
basketball and I go like thisand he scoops up both of those
(05:24):
containers because he heardFrank say I could only keep my
job if I could do my job and oneof my jobs was getting those
things.
He knew there was no way I wasgetting those things out to the
court.
So we walk about 200 yards downthis tunnel and then the way it
worked was you came out of thetunnel and the bottom concourse
was there and they had red ropesand so you had all these fans
against these red ropes and youwalked maybe 50 yards and then
(05:48):
you disappeared underneath thebleachers and you popped out
into the arena.
For six weeks Dennis Johnson,hall of Famer, all defensive
team, carried the water for an11-year-old kid through the fans
, so they saw him doing this.
(06:09):
A lot of players would be likenever would I humble myself this
way Six weeks.
He did that so I could keep myjob and I was a lifelong fan
even after I was out and he wasstill the Celtics.
He'd leave me tickets for thegames when he'd come back to
Seattle and all that kind ofthing.
But here's the funny story thatties it into leadership, servant
(06:33):
leadership.
So the funny thing is is afterthe game, one of my jobs was to
give beer to the players todrink afterwards and we had this
.
Excuse me, we had this bigrefrigerator like you'd had this
, you know, big refrigeratorlike you'd find in a grocery
store, one of the machines thatjust kind of stands there, not a
vending machine, but you know,you open it up.
Well, most of the beer wasBudweiser or Rainier, which was
(07:00):
a big Seattle beer.
Okay, sure, then we had a sixpack of saint paulie's girl beer
and a six pack of heineken.
And you can imagine when you'recomparing saint paulie's and
heineken to rainier or budweiserall the players wanted heineken
or the saint paulie job todistribute the beer.
Guess who never drank budweiseror or rainier beer?
(07:23):
I'm gonna guess dj, dj neverdrank.
Budweiser or Rainier beer, I'mgoing to guess DJ, dj never
drank the bad beer and I'll tellyou.
It's a great leadership lessonwhen you humble yourself and you
serve your followers, theybecome fiercely loyal.
In fact, one of my points inthe speech on my book the Art of
(07:45):
Influence is about how you gainloyalty through servanthood.
And if you want your employees,your clients, your customers,
you want them to be loyal to you, make sure they understand that
you are serving themsacrificially.
And it all came from hiswillingness to help me keep my
job and I was devoted to himuntil the time he passed away.
He passed away a heart attackwhen he was coaching in the
developmental league for the NBA, but it had profound impact on
(08:10):
me.
He didn't care that he was richand famous.
He didn't care that he wasblack and I was white.
He didn't care about, he washelping a little kid keep his
job.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Chris, I love that story, first of all because I
connect.
I'm a DJ, I'm a Celtics fan,larry Bird fan Love to hear that
.
In terms of how Bird talkedabout him, I do remember him
with the Supersonics and playing.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I think he played with Sigma, right yeah in fact,
I have an NBA championship ringand one of the reasons I have it
, or one of the things I like it, is because, number one, it's
just a beautiful time in my life.
Number two, it's a greatconversation speech, a
conversation starter in my life.
Number two, it's a greatconversation speech, a
conversation starter.
(08:48):
But number three is even a lotof diehard fans can't name a
single starter from that NBAteam and I always say it's the
most unsung team that ever wonan NBA championship.
If I say name some players fromthe Lakers Magic, Kareem, James
Worthy name from theics youknow larry bird name some from
the 76ers, dr j.
(09:10):
you know anybody can name mostof these teams, but even a lot
of nba players can't name or nbafans can't name the starting
five.
So the starting five was guswilliams, who passed away a few
weeks ago, dj.
Our small, small forward wasJohn Johnson, jj, and then our
power forward is Lonnie Shelton,who also passed away, and then
(09:31):
Jack Sigma was our startingcenter.
And then we had a guy on thebench, fred Brown.
Most people name actually mostpeople say downtown Freddie
Brown and he was our sixth man.
So I like the ring for thatbecause it represents what you
can do even if you're unsung,even if nobody knows you, you
can still win championships.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share
something special with you.
Many of the topics anddiscussions we have on this
podcast are areas where Iprovide coaching and consulting
services for individuals andorganizations.
If you've been inspired by ourconversation and are seeking a
catalyst for change in your ownlife or within your team, I
invite you to visitcoachjohngallaghercom forward
(10:10):
slash free call to sign up for afree coaching call with me.
It's an opportunity for us toconnect, discuss your unique
challenges and explore howcoaching or consulting can
benefit you and your team.
Okay, let's get back to theshow.
Amen.
So sports and leadership tiereally close together.
But the leadership story ofservant leadership is really
(10:33):
powerful as well.
You think about that as aleader of an organization and
often people will say, well,that's not fair, that he does
something like that gives thegood beer to DJ and not to the
others.
But what you're really lookingfor as a leader, when someone
will serve you, it's like saying, hey, if you will basically
show me that you're capable ofgoing that extra step, then I
(10:55):
will treat you differently,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I didn't give him all the good beer, because he
wouldn't have been able to drivehome if I gave him all the good
beer.
That's right, there was asix-pack of St Paul he's a
six-pack of Heineken.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
That was it, but he got first choice.
There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
I got first choice every time.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Hey, the art of influence.
Let's stay there.
Write on that book too.
So you talked about in thisbook.
Okay, one of 25, I couldn't getready for all of your books,
but you write your books.
Let's start with how you writethem, and most of them in the
form of fables.
Tell me how you got kind ofstarted in writing that in
fables and I don't know if itgoes back to your time as a
pastor as well or not and Jesusspoke in parables.
(11:32):
And now you're speaking.
What was there?
Speaker 1 (11:35):
I wish it was something altruistic like that.
I had written a bunch of books.
I was starting my career, gotinvolved with John Maxwell.
I ghost wrote for John, I wrotehis nationally syndicated
column and then I decided Ididn't want to ghost write
anymore and I wanted.
I set out, I want to write abest selling book.
And I was looking at it veryformulaic, very practical.
(11:59):
So at the time when I wrote mybook called the Angel Inside,
which is my best selling book ofall time, number two on the
Wall Street Journal, numberseven on the New York Times,
number three on Amazon overall,not in a category.
Overall, in fact, the only twobooks that beat that on Amazon
were the pre-release of HarryPotter and the lost book of JRR
(12:19):
Tolkien that his grandson foundin his attic after his grandpa
died, that his grandson found inhis attic after his grandpa
died.
And so I'm like, if I'm goingto be number three okay, the
best-selling fictions of alltime and one of the greatest
Christian writers of all timeI'll take number three.
It makes me feel like I'mnumber one.
So I was looking like whatcould I write?
That's very creative.
Well, another book that was abest seller at the time was the
Da Vinci Code and everybody wasinto Da Vinci.
(12:42):
There was a self-help bookcalled how to Think Like
Leonardo da Vinci and I thoughtI don't want to write another
one on da Vinci.
But Michelangelo lived thereand so I started looking at
Florence Italy in the early1500s Now Florence, italy was
only 50,000 people and so Istarted looking in there where
there was four major people thatlived there.
(13:04):
One of them was sort of parttime, raphael, kind of lived
there part time.
So the three that were Florenceresidents lived there, born
there, raised there, died.
There were Leonardo da Vinci,michelangelo, and those two did
not like each other at all.
And then the third one wasMachiavelli, and I'm like I
immediately got rid ofMachiavelli and I'm not writing
(13:30):
a book on self-help fromMachiavelli's perspective.
So that left me withMichelangelo and I didn't know a
lot about him.
So I ended up looking throughhis history and I thought I
could write a self-help bookbased on his life, the
principles of Michelangelo, andso I had two people who said
random things to me thatcompletely changed the book I
was going to write.
(13:50):
One was I don't know if youremember the old motivational
speaker he's contemporary ofZiggs and Jim's.
He wasn't ever as famous asthem, but his name was Charlie
Tremendous Jones.
Charlie was amazing.
The biggest personality I'veever met in my life was Charlie
Tremendous Jones and in fact thefirst time I ever met him I
(14:11):
walked up to him and said MrJones, we have a mutual friend
in Kyle.
And he goes and he's six footfive.
He weighed like 300 pounds.
He leans over to me, he goes.
You know, kyle's a brother ofmine.
Are you a brother of mine?
He was asking me if I was aChristian and I said I am a
brother of yours, at which pointI've known him less than 15
seconds.
(14:31):
At this point he puts his handsunder my armpits, lifts me six
inches off of the ground andplants a big kiss on my cheek.
That's Charlie Tremendous Jones.
You've never met a guy likeCharlie.
He was something else.
Charlie says to me Chris, makeit short.
Nobody reads thick booksanymore.
(14:52):
Make it short.
So I thought, okay, interesting.
Then another friend of mine,mark Sanborn, who's Hall of Fame
speaker, wrote a book calledthe Fred Factor, 5 million
copies in print.
President of the NationalSpeaker Association, mark says
to me you know what you shoulddo, chris.
You should write it like aparable.
(15:12):
And I went huh, okay, I will.
So again, I'm just looking at aformula to write a bestselling
book because I was tired ofghostwriting for other people, I
was tired of writing mediumselling books, whatever.
So I went into a Barnes Noble inBellevue, washington, where I
was living in Seattle at thetime.
I walk in there, I walk to thebusiness section.
(15:33):
I find a 10-blanchard book, oneMinute Manager.
I open it up.
I counted how many words wereon one page.
I went to how many pages therewere.
Multiplied it 20,000.
So all of my books are well,almost all of my books the
fiction ones are all between 20and 25,000 words.
I released this book became abig international bestseller 14
(15:53):
languages, the whole thing.
And so Art of Influence wasjust another one of those books
I ended up.
We self-published it sold120,000 copies.
Then I sold it to Random Houseon a two book deal and the
second book became the Art ofInfluence.
So it's a fictional story abouta young man, first guy to ever
go to college in his family,certainly the first guy to ever
(16:15):
get his MBA.
And the book opens with him ata backyard barbecue back in
Kansas where they were throwinghim a party and his grandmother,
who he barely knew from SouthDakota, comes down to the party
and she hands him an envelopefor his gift.
Now in the book, a lot ofthings, a lot of fun things
about writing fictional books isyou can incorporate stories
from your life and just changethem.
(16:36):
In fact, I'll tell you a coupleof little Easter eggs in the
book that are kind of fun.
Um so um.
She hands him an envelope andthe the idea is is I don't know
when you were growing up, whatyour grandmother gave you every
year for for your birthday wasusually an envelope with a $5
bill in it.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I got you Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Those of you who are younger and you're used to
getting playstations and stufflike that.
You know, john and I we got $5in our in an envelope.
You know that's what we got itwas.
It was standard.
I don't even think I lived longenough to get my grandmother to
give me 10 bucks for mybirthday.
It was always a $5 bill it hada little window too.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
You could see Lincoln in the window Right.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
But then the other funny thing is for the young
people is you know, that wasgreat for us because you could
get a Snickers bar for 15 centsMaybe 10 cents actually, but you
could go buy 30 candy bars for15 cents, so anyway.
So I ended up writing the andso.
But inside the envelope shesays you get to spend a week
(17:34):
with Bobby Gold.
Well, Bobby Gold's a fictionalcharacter, but he's like the
10th or 15th richest guy inAmerica and he thinks his
grandmother's gone crazy.
He's like how, what are youtalking about?
Like, how do I get to spend aweek with Bobby Gold?
And she goes oh, I probablynever told you, but I was his
nanny when he was a little boy.
(17:54):
And so he gets to spend a week.
And so the story of the art ofinfluence is is Bobby Gold
teaching Marcus the lessons ofthe art of influence?
And he basically says look.
When they first meet, he sayslook, I know you graduated from
Keller Kellogg school ofbusiness.
I know you know Kellogg Schoolof Business.
I know you know the science ofbusiness.
I'm going to teach you the artof business.
And the art of business is theart of influence.
So that's the premise of thebook and four lessons, lessons
(18:16):
on integrity, optimism, serviceand excellence.
But before we dive into it,I'll tell you a couple of the
little Easter eggs.
The jet in that book is JeffBezoszos jet, his first jet not
anymore, he sold that it was aFalcon 900 EX extended range and
one of the guys that went to mychurch was Jeff's personal
(18:38):
pilot.
So I was going to write thisthing and so he was always down
at Boeing field.
So I called him up and I said Ineed to write about a jet.
Can I come down and look atJeff's jet?
And he goes yeah, sure, come ondown, I'm just hanging out.
So the jet in that is isactually Jeff Bezos.
That's awesome.
The second little Easter egg isthere is that Bobby Gold owns a
baseball team and one of thethings he does in the service
(19:00):
chapter you know, serving othersis they're at a baseball game.
He owns a fictional Chicagobaseball team and about two or
three innings into it he sayscome on, let's go.
And they start walking aroundthe stadium and he starts
talking like he knows everyusher's name, he knows every
vendor's name and he walks up tohim Bob, how are you doing?
(19:21):
Bob has seven kids and 14grandkids and blah, blah, blah.
Well, that's based on a friendof mine who was also a member of
my church when I was a pastor,who was.
The first thing was 17 years asa CFO of the Mariners and the
last seven years president.
Ceo of the Mariners and I wouldgo to a lot of Mariners games.
We always sat in the owner'sbox and then when he became
(19:42):
president he had his own box sowe'd sit there, but every time
by about the third inning he, myfriend Kevin, would say get up,
let's go.
And we walked to that stadiumand we would go to the third
deck in the outfield and he knewthe ushers.
Wow, all those people loved himbecause he cared more about
them than he cared about thefact that he was the president
and could be sitting in his ownlittle box.
(20:03):
So, um, great leadership.
Those are a couple of littleEaster eggs in the in.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Those are Easter eggs , those are really cool.
And as I read through thosegolden rules, as you said,
integrity, attitude, um, the,the importance of others'
interests, uh, which is in thatstory, right there.
And then, don't settle foranything less than excellence,
and that one, you know, for me,uh, you know, I I believe the
first book that I write is goingto be titled Excellence Only
(20:28):
Happens on Purpose.
You have to be very intentionalto build that space and there
was a quote in there.
He said inside of that chapterit says gain influence by making
money.
You gain even more by giving itaway.
Now, first of all, I'd like youto chat with me about that word
excellence and kind of what thatmeans to you, Because you even
(20:53):
talked about little stories likethat but also little examples
of excellence.
For me, it's when somebodyleaves a shopping cart in the
parking lot.
It just drives me crazy.
From a pet peeve standpoint,I'm going to push it back into
the corral or into the store,whatever it takes.
But that quote you can gaininfluence by making money.
Gain even more by giving itaway.
That's like bigger than evenexcellence, that's kingdom type
impact.
What is there for you in thatword, excellence?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Well, remember what Jesus said.
Jesus said to give your wealthaway to your friends so that you
might be received into heavenright, and he doesn't mean that
you earn your way into heaven bygiving your money away.
He means that by giving yourmoney away, you'll have impact
and those people will see you inheaven.
That's what he meant thatyou'll be received by all these
(21:35):
other people for whom your moneymade an impact.
Use your wealth to gain friendsis actually what Jesus said,
and a lot of people go whoa.
Use your wealth to gain friends.
He doesn't mean you're buyingfriendships.
He means you're distributingyour wealth.
You're a generous giver.
You know you're giving thatmoney away.
But excellence I believe thatevery human being is created in
(21:57):
the image of God, and the imageof God is excellence.
There's nothing in God that isanything less than perfection,
and we are created in the imageof God and every single one of
us is given gifts and talentsthat God has given us in which
we can exhibit excellence.
And I believe that whatever wedo, whatever we say, whatever we
(22:19):
write, whatever we think,should be set up against the
standard of excellence, Becausethe Bible also says whatsoever,
you put your hand to thestandard of excellence, Because
the Bible also says whatsoeveryou put your hand to do it as
though you're doing it under theLord.
In fact, there's a Christianband that many of you have
probably heard of, calledCasting Crowns.
That's the name of the bigChristian band.
It comes from the story in thebook of Revelation where all the
(22:42):
people in heaven will taketheir crowns and they will cast
them at the feet of Jesus, andthe crowns are embedded with
jewels and all those kinds ofthings and a lot of people
theologians think that thosejewels represent our good works
in our life and then we're givena crown based on our good works
in life.
We don't earn salvation withour good works, but we get this
crown, and so the act of takingour crown and casting it is my
(23:06):
life was yours, All of my goodworks were yours, all of this.
So I always joke and I say whenyou get to heaven, you want a
diamond, ruby, emerald,encrusted, you know, gold crown.
You don't want one of those oldBurger King paper crowns, right
?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
You don't want to show It'll still be a crown, but
it's not the same, it'll stillbe a crown.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
You'll get in, but you won't have much to offer,
right?
So the idea is number one wewant to be excellent because
it's representative of God'sexcellence and we are made in
the image of God.
You know, I'm probably the onlyguy you know who cries watching
the Voice, because the TV show,the Voice.
Sometimes I will hear somesinger just amazing singer and
I'll start to cry, not becausethey're so good, but because of
(23:55):
how good God is.
Like, look at the person, lookat the gift that God gave this
person.
I always look at God when Ihear something amazing or see
something amazing or somethinglike that, because it's from the
hand of God, it's so incredible.
So the idea of excellence and Ilike your ideas that excellence
(24:17):
is a choice.
We get to choose what we'regoing to do.
So what I always teach peopleis take a look at your life,
finances, relationships,marriage, business, health and
ask yourself can I raise mystandard of excellence?
Now, there's some things.
If you put a scale of one to 10, there's some things that
people are nines or tens at.
They're excellent at it, butthat excellent part may be being
(24:39):
undone because they have anarea of their life where they
are not particularly excellentand it undermines their ability
to influence other people.
I knew a guy, a preacher, once,who was like 150 pounds
overweight and one of hiscongregation told him one time I
just got to tell you I have areally hard time listening to
you, particularly when you talkabout discipline and
(25:02):
disciplining yourself to prayand disciplining yourself to
give, and he's like you don'tdemonstrate it and it's the
first thing people see from you.
Well, this guy lost so muchweight that one time I was at a
retreat and there was anotherchurch using the retreat center
and it was a pastor that I knew,but he knew this other pastor
(25:24):
that had been told he was toofat and they were talking.
I walked up to the pastor Iknew.
I didn't even talk to this guywho I was good friends with,
because I hadn't seen him inlike a year and a half.
I literally did not evenrecognize the guy.
He had brought himself fromlike 375 to like 175 or
something like that, so much soI didn't even recognize.
(25:45):
I'm talking to Jeff and I'm noteven talking to this guy, but he
wanted to eliminate that poordemonstration of excellence
because it was affecting.
He was a great preacher, greatBible teacher and but it was
affecting his ability to what hewas excellent at because he
wasn't excellent at another areaof his life.
So I always tell people improveyour level of excellence as
(26:07):
much as you possibly can,because in the book I talk about
this in my speeches.
Excellence commands respect.
People respect people who livea life of excellence.
They might not even have certainthings, but the best way for
you to show up and haveinfluence is, you know,
integrity, yes.
Optimism, yes, service, yes,but there's also excellence.
(26:30):
Number one is always integrity.
The others you can put whateverorder you want, but excellence
is such.
It builds the ability toinfluence.
And I always use this examplethe celebrity endorsement.
The celebrity endorsement isbasically a product taking a
person of excellence, mergingthe two, and it allows you to
(26:50):
sell more of the product becausethey associate it with the
person, and I always use MichaelJordan as an example.
Michael Jordan made more moneyas an endorser than he did in
his salary.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
As a basketball player.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
As a basketball player.
And so why did they chooseMichael Jordan?
Because he was now, I alwayssay, the greatest player in the
nba history.
But I only say that becauseeverybody else is too young to
remember wilt chamberlain, who'sactually the greatest player to
ever play in the end.
And you don't even want to getan argument with me on that.
I figured we don't have enoughtime, do we?
50 years after he retired fromthe nba, he still owns 72 nba
(27:30):
records, kind of hard to arguewith that, but anyway, um, you
know, think about Wheaties.
What is a Wheatie?
I had one guy yell from theaudience it's corn, corn.
It's like a corn flake.
I'm like no, that's cornies.
Wheaties is a baked flake ofwheat, that's it.
But their brand is thebreakfast of champions.
(27:53):
Absolutely.
Do we really believe that everyfour years at the summer
olympics, some guys gettingready to run the 1500 and they
say, hey, you got your racetoday.
What are you gonna do?
I'm gonna go down and havethree bowls of wheaties.
No, breakfast of champions islike white the egg, whites, lean
meats, fruit.
That's the breakfast ofchampions, not Wheaties.
(28:13):
But they were brilliant.
They take Nadia Comaneci, thefirst person to ever get a 10,
she's a breakfast of champion.
Michael Jordan, you know BruceJenner, you know all these
people they put them on the Iremember Mary Lou Retton on the
front of one, being from WestVirginia as well.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Absolutely, she was on there, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I always make this joke that some guys looking at
some guys looking at Wheatiesand goes well, michael Jordan
eats Wheaties.
If I eat Wheaties, maybe Icould dunk.
No, you're five, two, two, 40.
You're never going to dunk, butthey've built this idea.
Nike everybody knows Nike, airJordans.
I asked the question what doesMichael Jordan drink when he's
during a timeout?
Everybody yells Gatorade.
(28:50):
They've built these brands bypartnering with someone of
excellence.
So what I always say is is ifyou wanna have more influence in
the lives of other people, ifyou want people to respect you,
if you want people to rememberyour name, you are product.
You are the product.
You're always selling product.
You are the product.
You're always selling yourself.
You are the product.
(29:11):
And the first thing they'regoing to ask is is this
excellent?
And if you're excellent, you'redeep into being able to
influence those people.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Love that and I love the conversation going all the
way back to your start about thediscipline that's required to
do that.
I use a quote that says youknow, good intention, which we
have.
We often.
We do have good intention aboutour health, finances, career,
whatever those things are, butgood intention without
discipline will lead to excuses.
Good intention with gooddiscipline leads to excellence.
It's printed on that coffee mugright there.
(29:42):
I mean absolutely.
I mean that word is reallysomething that—important is
probably not the right word, butit elicits a response from me
when someone says that, even asit being a biblical quote,
whatever you do, do it withexcellence and do it for God.
I mean those are things thatexist inside of that space.
Whether it's picking up a pieceof paper that they talk about
(30:05):
in the book as you're walkingthrough you know a room, or
whether it's putting a shoppingcart back in the shopping cart
corral or, frankly, whether it'sbeing the best basketball
player in the world, like WillChamberlain was best ever.
Okay, We'll give, we'll give awe'll Chamberlain.
I don't know that I could arguewith it on this call.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Martin Luther King Jr said do whatever you do with
excellence.
If you're a street keeper, ifyou're a street sweeper be the
greatest street sweeper, thegreatest Yep Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So.
That book is really cool and Icould spend even the call on
another book that influenced meand I think how we ended up.
Connecting was really aboutfaith and you've touched on that
just a little bit.
You have one that's come outreally recently called the
Coming American Revival, whichwas not written in the form of a
fable, so in writing that book,the Coming American Revival,
(30:54):
tell me a little bit about thatbook, what it meant to you, but
who'd you write it for?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Well, so I was writing my 25th book, called
Capitalism, or the Capitalist isthe working title, and it was
going to be a fiction story.
It was going to be about abillionaire who hosted a family
reunion at his mansion inJackson Hole his estate in
Jackson Hole at the request ofhis 94-year-old grandmother.
Will you hold a big familyreunion?
I'm getting old?
Well, his sister brings hervery, very, very, very
(31:21):
ultra-liberal daughter to thisevent and she hates her uncle
because he's a billionaire.
So the book is.
Eventually I'm going to releaseit.
I'm 40% of the way through, butit's the conversations between
this billionaire and hisanti-capitalist niece.
So anyway, 40% of the waythrough that book, I felt like
God said I want you to write abook on revival.
(31:42):
So I'm like all right, I'llhave to dust off my pastor's hat
.
So I started doing a lot ofresearch on revival the first
great awakening, second greatawakening, third great awakening
, azusa Street revival and theJesus people revival.
They usually come 50 to 70years or have, so we're about
due for a revival.
So I did a research on therevivals, things we learned from
(32:04):
those revivals, talked aboutwhy we need revival and the
spiritual bankruptcy that thechurch has in America today.
One of the reasons we're soineffective is because we're
just lukewarm.
You take the average Christian.
Take away Sunday morning andWednesday night.
They look exactly like everyother person in America.
They spend their money the sameway, they watch the same movies
, they listen to the same music,they go to the same places.
(32:26):
They look exactly like the restof the world.
And that's the problem.
And so I have chapters in there.
What revival would look like ineducation?
What revival would look like inentertainment?
What revival would look like inentertainment?
What revival would look like inbusiness?
What revival would look like inthe church?
And then I end the book withtwo sort of add-ons.
One is an analysis of RichardFoster's spiritual disciplines
(32:49):
that he talks about in the bookSpirit of the Disciplines.
That might be Dallas Willard'sbook, but the one Richard Foster
wrote, challenge of theDisciplines, I think.
And then I end the book with a31-day devotional.
First 10 days are aboutpersonal revival.
Second 10 days are about churchrevival.
Third 10 days are aboutnational revival.
(33:11):
And then the last day, the 31stday, is a where do you go from
here?
So wrote that book came out,hit a lot of the lists on Amazon
and such.
I gave the very first book toPresident Trump because I knew
him, I used to put on Trumpevents so I gave the very first
copy to him, got a really niceletter back from him about the
(33:31):
book, which now in our livingroom I have a big beautiful
frame with the cover of the bookand the letter from President
Trump.
But Senator Tim Scott fromSouth Carolina is the cover
endorsement of the book and theletter from President Trump.
But Senator Tim Scott fromSouth Carolina is the cover
endorsement of the book.
Country star John Rich wrote anendorsement for the book.
So I got a really wide varietyof endorsers on that book.
(33:52):
But it's doing well and itbecame the premise for a revival
meeting that we're putting onin May 3rd in Jacksonville that
we're going to live stream tothousands of churches, prisons,
colleges, universities, everymilitary base in the world.
We'll have 10 or 15,000 peopleat that event.
People are interested.
They can go to revive25.org andfind out more about the event.
(34:15):
But I just believe that we'reon the cusp of revival.
It's already starting to bubbleup.
You see it a lot in prisons,you're seeing it a lot on
college campuses and so you gotthese little bubblings all over
America.
You know, and I think reallywe're just ripe for somebody to
call the church to repentanceand to turn their hearts back to
(34:37):
God, and God led us to do that.
I have a couple partners.
The whole event is nonprofit.
All monies are going to bedistributed to 501c3s and we're
excited about it.
We've got some amazing partnersnational religious broadcasters
, whose members reach 174million people a month.
Praycom, which has 18 milliondownloads.
(34:59):
Pushpay, the number one churchdonation processor.
They're donating all thestreaming through a company they
own called Resi, a companycalled Glue, which is the number
one texting platform in Americafor churches.
They have 90,000 churches thatare paying customers.
So everything's just comingtogether.
God has just networked thiswhole thing together.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Have I seen this advertised on the Bible app as
well, craig?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Roussel's Bible app.
No, we really haven'tadvertised it.
Advertise might?
Be the right word, but You'reactually the very first person
that I've ever even saidanything to about the website.
The website went live yesterday.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Oh, wow, wow, Fantastic.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
So, yeah, we're at the very beginning stages, we're
under 90 days, but we alreadyhave people coming out and
volunteering to speak,volunteering to sing.
The very first person that wetalked to she reached out to me
on LinkedIn Chyna Phillips, oneof the three Wilson Phillips
band.
She's married to Billy Baldwin.
Her mom and dad were half ofthe group Mamas and Papas, yeah,
(35:57):
so we're getting a lot of.
We're talking to trying to getDenzel Washington to come out.
He just got ordained and isgoing into ministry.
Talking to Russell Brand, we'vegot a bunch of preachers, some
great preachers, musicians,worship leaders, all of that.
So it's going to be a realgreat day of revival.
It's not a show.
There will be great, we will doit with excellence, but it's
(36:22):
not a show.
It's really driven to call thechurch to get back and to get
right with God.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Love that.
I mean.
I think that word revival is somisunderstood.
I've had a conversation withsomeone recently and said you
know about an event that I'll beworking at in March for
Christian business leaders andreally their personal
development, running theirbusinesses as a ministry as well
, and you know, kind of talkingabout some of the ideas, and one
of the individuals says I don'twant it to really be a revival,
(36:49):
though I'm like I think it hasto be a revival.
So there's like this feeling ofthe revival.
The Southern Baptist revival is, you know, bible thumpers,
snakes and owls and things likethat, but revival is you define
it in your book, I love it aspiritual awakening from a state
of dormancy.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I love that simple definition.
It literally means again,re-means again.
Vival is from the Latin termviva life.
It means life again, come tolife again, which it reminds me
of the book of Revelation, allthose seven letters to the seven
churches, and one of them hesaid you know, go back to doing
(37:25):
the things that you did.
You know, regain your firstlove, do the things you did at
the beginning.
And so many people, they're allexcited for God and they're on
fire for God, and then theyslowly die.
But it's not just yourspiritual revival.
Your spiritual revival bringsabout marriage.
Revival brings about health.
Revival brings about moneyrevival.
(37:45):
It's bringing all of thosethings to life again under the
spiritual covering that we havewhen we have a relationship with
Christ.
And so we need to come to lifeagain.
The church is dead.
I mean, if you think about it,it's anemic at best.
We have more money, morechurches, more Christians, more
(38:07):
conferences, more books, moreaudio programs, more podcasts
than we ever have in the historyof the church, and we're anemic
at best.
We have no cultural influence.
Why?
Because there's no power behindit.
That's the problem.
We need to be brought to lifeagain.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I have followed Craig Rochelle for a while, both this
leadership podcast and LifeChurch and he had a five-part
series recently calledChristian-ish.
That you know, we say we'reChristian but we're kind of
Christian, we're Christian-ish.
You talk about that being theSunday and the Wednesday night,
so to speak, but what are ourlives display that make us
Christian?
That we should really be doing,and I love you know the
(38:46):
criteria to talk about that.
You know the Christian will behumble, they will repent, they
will pray, they'll proclaim thegospel and they'll love their
neighbors, and all of thosethings together are things that
are critical, and it's anotherpodcast I think I could talk
about the whole time.
I'm so glad you wrote it Well.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
The other thing is there's a difference between a
revival and evangelistic meeting.
Sometimes people say I went toa Billy Graham revival meeting.
No, he didn't.
He didn't do revival meetings,he did evangelistic outreach.
This is going to be about thechurch.
Will some people who are justpursuing the faith come?
Sure, some.
This isn't about evangelism.
We're not going to have, youknow, come forward and receive
(39:26):
Jesus.
We might not, because therewill be some people and through
churches and prisons and thelike, you know there will be
some people.
But it's really a message tothe church because if the church
gets revived, evangelism takescare of itself.
Right, evangel, right.
So you have two kinds ofChristians sitting in the
churches.
One is that are not revived,they're kind of just
(39:47):
Christian-ish right.
Number one is the person thatnever talks about Jesus to
anybody.
Well, they would if they had adeep relationship with Jesus.
The other one is those who tryto talk to people about Jesus
but they have no power in theirlife and the people just go yeah
, why don't you figure your lifeout first and then come tell me
about Jesus, right?
So the key here is to inflamethat church and fan the flames,
(40:12):
get them going again and therest of it takes care of itself,
feeding the poor, witnessing ofChrist.
All those things take place outof a church that is alive.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Love that.
I wish I could take more timeto spend.
I just got a couple morequestions.
I want to honor your time,chris, as we go through this.
A little bit about you.
So you've had the privilege ofI use the term learning from
giants but also influencinggiants.
These guys, john Maxwell, zigZiglar, jim Rohn Tell me your
favorite Maxwell story have fun.
One that you've never toldbefore.
(40:44):
That's going to get somebody introuble, kind of thing.
No, but not in a lawsuit.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
It popped right into my mind.
Okay, so it's a funny storyabout John.
In fact, I saw John about threemonths ago at an event and I
reminded him of this story I had.
John was one of the speakers.
I was one of the speakersWhitaker I can't remember his
first name he was the firstAmerican up Mount Everest.
(41:11):
He was one of our speakers andas was Vince Lombardi Jr.
So Jim Whitaker was his name,founder of REI.
Him and his brother founded REIand he was the first American
up.
Well, this was in 2002,september 26th 2002.
Well, he got to the top of MountEverest on May 3rd or May 4th,
(41:37):
1974.
So or no, pardon me, it was 50years later.
Anyway, he was coming up onsome you know it was, he was
about 18 months from you knowbig anniversary going up.
And so we were standing thereit was me and John and Jim
Whitaker, and he had announcedto the audience that he was
(41:58):
taking people who wanted to gowith him.
He would take them up and hewould go to base camp.
He wasn't going to take themall the way to the top of Mount
Everest, but he was going totake them up.
So, anyway, we were standingthere and John says, and you
know, john, big goals, bigdreams.
And John says I'm coming to my,I'm coming up Mount Everest
(42:20):
with you, I'm coming on MountEverest with you.
And Jim stepped back and helooked at John and he goes.
Are you sure John goes?
I do 45 minutes a day on thetreadmill.
He goes.
You better do about four hoursa day on the treadmill.
So that's a kind of a funnystory that might get me in
trouble.
But but it's true.
(42:41):
You know you had to be intip-top shape if you were going
to go with Jim Whitaker.
Like I didn't even think aboutit, I looked at myself in the
mirror that day.
There's no way I'm going upMount Everest with Jim Whitaker.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I appreciate you sharing.
You know those have been andJohn laughed about it, so he
would Absolutely no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
I don't read, I hardly read, any books that are
contemporary.
I barely ever read a bookthat's contemporary.
I like to read biographies ofdead guys.
I like to read books written bydead guys, and I'll tell you
why because there's so muchVogue content.
You know, right now it's allabout habits.
Everybody's got their habitsbooks, right.
(43:44):
You know everybody.
You know just Google.
Go to Amazon and type in theword, the F word, and you'll see
how many books have the F wordin it now, cause there was one
book that took off and had the Fword in it.
Now everybody's got an F wordbook.
You know, it's like everybodyjust piles on because they want
to be a bestseller.
The dead guys wrote to changelives, the new guys write books
(44:06):
to get speaking engagements, andso I I rarely read any sort of
contemporary books.
Rarely.
I read dead guys andparticularly I focus in on, you
know, founding Fathers.
I'm reading through anything byAndrew Murray, anything by AW
(44:26):
Tozer, anything by CharlesFinney.
I'm reading Confessions byAugustine right now, because if
it's still true a thousand yearslater or a hundred years later,
it's a universal truth, and soI try to fill myself with that
kind of thing mostly.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Love that.
Thanks for sharing, Chris.
How do folks stay in touch withyou or learn more about you?
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Well, they can go to revive25.org if they want to
know about the revive or orgrevive25.org if they want to
find out about that revival.
We also have a place there ifyou're interested in sponsoring
or vending or any of those kindsof things.
But chrisweidnercom is mywebsite.
Chris at chrisweidner is myemail, chris at chrisweidnercom.
And be happy if there's any wayI can help you or any of those
(45:14):
kinds of things.
Happy to do it.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Chris, fantastic.
I'll make sure to put thoselinks in your email address in
the show notes so that folkshave access to it.
I'll give you the last wordhere.
The question I always end upwith on my with my first time
guests I'm going to give you abillboard.
You can place it anywhere youwant to, whether it's in there
in Chattanooga where you are, oranywhere else you want to put
it up in Seattle, it doesn'tmatter to me where you put it,
billboard, and why do you putthat message on there?
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Well, I'm going to tell you a story briefly.
I'll condense it because I knowwe're short on time, but I
would put the phrase that Iheard in this story.
I was at a Christian conferencewhen I was like 22 years old,
23 years old, right out of Biblecollege, and there's 500 people
there.
It was in Edmonton, alberta.
I didn't know a single soul.
And you know, during the breaksyou're kind of standing there
with your coffee and I don'tknow anybody.
(46:00):
And I turn around and I comeface to face with a woman who's
about 55 and a woman who's about30, like bam, there they are,
and the woman who's 30 does this, doesn't say a word.
And her mother looks at me,looks at her, looks at me, looks
at her.
And her mother looks at me,looks at her, looks at me, looks
at her, looks at me, looks ather and goes.
Is that him?
(46:20):
And she goes still has said nota word.
Her mother says OK, this isprobably weird to you, but I got
to tell you the story.
This is my daughter.
We're here for the conference.
Last night, at two in themorning, she woke up, bolted out
of bed, woke me up and said Mom, I just had the weirdest dream.
(46:41):
I saw this man's face and Godtold me to tell him something.
So she looks at her daughterand says tell him To the mom.
It was just nonchalant.
So tell him.
And the younger woman says I'msupposed to tell you, and this
is what I would put on abillboard.
I've told this story so manytimes.
She said I'm supposed to tellyou.
(47:01):
Be a voice, not an echo.
I never saw them again.
I didn't get their names, Idon't know who they are, I don't
know where they live, don'tknow anything about them.
But I've remembered that for 36years now 34, 35, 36 years now.
Be a voice, not an echo, whichis probably why I like reading
dead guys and not all the peoplethat pile on to write a
(47:23):
bestselling book, and I think itis so good.
It's such great advice.
Do your own work, do your ownthinking.
Don't just regurgitate whatother people are doing.
Don't regurgitate something youheard from somebody else.
Sure, quote them, but give themcredit for it.
If I had a nickel for everysingle time somebody quoted Jim
Rohn as their own, I'd be a rich, rich, rich, rich, rich, rich
(47:46):
man, because everybody tries topass off work harder on yourself
than you do on your job andpeople post those things as
though they're themselves.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Average of the five people.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, and in the comment section I always write I
love Jim Rohn quotes.
Anyway, I think it's important,if you're in business, be the
voice, not the echo.
Deliver something above andbeyond.
Deliver something unique to you.
Don't just deliver what everyother HVAC company's offering.
Don't just deliver what everyother furniture store is
(48:16):
offering.
Offer something else.
Be a voice, not an echo.
And I love that and that'sprobably what I would put on a
bill.
Else be a voice, not an echo,and I love that, and that's
probably what I would put on abillboard.
Be a voice, not an echo.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
So much fun to share.
Chris, thank you so much.
I have appreciated our time andI really appreciate I know the
listeners have that you've addedvalue to those on the Uncommon
Leader podcast.
I wish you the best in thefuture and look forward to
connecting at some point again.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
I appreciate it.
And that wraps up anotherepisode of the Uncommon Leader
Podcast.
Thanks for tuning in today.
If you found value in thisepisode, I encourage you to
share it with your friends,colleagues or anyone else who
could benefit from the insightsand inspiration we've shared.
Also, if you have a moment, I'dgreatly appreciate if you could
leave a rating and review onyour favorite podcast platform.
Your feedback not only helps usto improve, but it also helps
(49:05):
others discover the podcast andjoin our growing community of
uncommon leaders.
Until next time, go and growchampions.
I believe that every human being is created in the
image of God, and the image ofGod is excellence.
There's nothing in God that isanything less than perfection,
and every single one of us isgiven gifts and talents in which
we can exhibit excellence.
And I believe that whatever wedo, whatever we say, whatever we
write, whatever we think,should be set up against the
(00:22):
standard of excellence.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Hey, uncommon Leaders , welcome back.
This is the Uncommon LeaderPodcast and I'm your host, john
Gallagher, today.
I've definitely got an uncommonleader for us today.
I'm going to read down just alittle bit of some of the, if
you will, statistics for thisindividual that are going to tee
it up for the greatconversation we're going to have
today.
Chris Widener is one of the top50 speakers in the world.
(00:52):
He's in the MotivationalSpeaker Hall of Fame.
He's been named by SuccessMagazine as one of the top 10
sales speakers and I know heprobably gets tired already.
He's like John, we don't needto talk about this but Inc
Magazine is one of the top 100leadership speakers in the world
.
He's recognized for that andhe's written 25 books, which is
really what we're here to talkabout today in terms of learning
(01:12):
about him.
Not all 25.
We'll never get through all ofthose, but I'm even interested
in some of his favorite storiesabout those he's mentored and
been mentored by, and that'sJohn Maxwell, zig Ziglar and Jim
Rohn.
So, looking forward to theconversation today, chris Weiner
, welcome to the Uncommon LeaderPodcast.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Thanks for having me.
And you know I got to tell youI must've sent you an old bio
because three days ago I wasnamed the 17th best sales
speaker in the world by GlobalGurus, which is a big worldwide
sort of speaker monitoring kindof thing.
It was a total shock.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I just I got an email said hey, we just named you
that I'm like I'll take itExcellent.
Well, that's you're talkingabout 2,500 times.
You've spoken all over theworld, so that's probably been a
few more since you wrote thatas well.
So I can understand how, if youcan do it that many times,
you're going to get really goodat it.
One of the coaches that I havesays if you want to get great,
he says you do the firstthousand of them, you're really
(02:02):
bad, and then you get reallygood after that.
So I think I got about 992 leftto go in terms of speeches, but
we'll see how that goes.
So, hey, I'll start you offwith the first question.
I always start my first timeguests and it's really great to
have you on the show.
But tell me a story from yourchildhood that still impacts who
you are today, as a person oras a leader.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
So I had the great fortune at the age of 11 to
become a ball boy for theSeattle Supersonics and I spent
seven years working in the NBA.
The first two years I was inthe Sonics locker room.
The second, third or the third,fourth and fifth I was in the
visiting team locker room, andthen the last two years of high
school I was in the Sonicslocker room again, and my very
first year here I am 11 yearsold.
(02:48):
My very first year I fell off aroof and I broke both of my
arms and so I literally hadcasts on my arms like this.
And I went to work at a gameand I walked in and Frank
Furtado was our trainer.
He was the former wrestlingcoach from Seattle Pacific and I
(03:10):
was terrified of Frank.
He was my boss and I'm 11 yearsold and he was taping the
ankles of Dennis Johnson, dj.
Most people don't know DJ Forthe Sonics.
They know him as on those greatCeltics teams.
In fact, larry Bird calledDennis Johnson the greatest
teammate I ever played with, andDJ was not famous.
Yet.
This was the first year weended up losing the World
(03:32):
Championship that year to theWashington Bullets at the time
in seven games.
The second year we won theWorld Championship against the
same Bullets in five games.
So at the age of 13, I had thehighlight of my career.
I was in a ticker tape paradewith 500,000 people as part of
an NBA championship team.
I'd be like, where do you gofrom here?
Right, how do you ever top this11 years old?
(03:53):
Yeah, I'm done, I've lived it.
But the story that profoundlyimpacted me was I came walking
into the thing arms in casts andthey both kind of laughed at me
at first, like what happened toyou?
We ended up and I said can Ikeep my job?
And Frank said you can keepyour job if you can do your job.
And I said, okay.
(04:16):
Well, one of my jobs was tomake the five-gallon jugs of
Gatorade and water one Gatorade,one water and to haul them 500
yards to the court.
So I'm like, oh boy, how am Igoing to do this?
And we didn't have carts at thetime.
So I go into the room where wefilled them and you know I had.
We had these paint sticks.
You know clean paint sticksthat I stir them with.
So here I am, stirring a wedgetinto my hands, I'm stirring it
up, and while I'm stirring it up.
(04:38):
Dj, now done with getting hisankles wrapped, he comes into
the room and he says hey, tellyou what, wait for me and I'll
walk out to the court with you.
And I said okay.
So I drag these things, one ata time with both hands, drag
them like this, and I'm 11.
I'm like maybe not even fivefeet tall at this point.
I go out the main door into thehallway and I sit down on top of
(05:02):
one of them and I wait for DJ.
He said you want to walk out tothe court with me?
Okay, dj comes walking out witha basketball to do the shoot
around.
This is before many of the fanshave gotten there.
They go shoot around, then theycome back and then they do
their team layup things.
You know, you know that way.
So anyway, I'm sitting there,he walks out, he hands me the
basketball and I go like thisand he scoops up both of those
(05:24):
containers because he heardFrank say I could only keep my
job if I could do my job and oneof my jobs was getting those
things.
He knew there was no way I wasgetting those things out to the
court.
So we walk about 200 yards downthis tunnel and then the way it
worked was you came out of thetunnel and the bottom concourse
was there and they had red ropesand so you had all these fans
against these red ropes and youwalked maybe 50 yards and then
(05:48):
you disappeared underneath thebleachers and you popped out
into the arena.
For six weeks Dennis Johnson,hall of Famer, all defensive
team, carried the water for an11-year-old kid through the fans
, so they saw him doing this.
(06:09):
A lot of players would be likenever would I humble myself this
way Six weeks.
He did that so I could keep myjob and I was a lifelong fan
even after I was out and he wasstill the Celtics.
He'd leave me tickets for thegames when he'd come back to
Seattle and all that kind ofthing.
But here's the funny story thatties it into leadership, servant
(06:33):
leadership.
So the funny thing is is afterthe game, one of my jobs was to
give beer to the players todrink afterwards and we had this
.
Excuse me, we had this bigrefrigerator like you'd had this
, you know, big refrigeratorlike you'd find in a grocery
store, one of the machines thatjust kind of stands there, not a
vending machine, but you know,you open it up.
Well, most of the beer wasBudweiser or Rainier, which was
(07:00):
a big Seattle beer.
Okay, sure, then we had a sixpack of saint paulie's girl beer
and a six pack of heineken.
And you can imagine when you'recomparing saint paulie's and
heineken to rainier or budweiserall the players wanted heineken
or the saint paulie job todistribute the beer.
Guess who never drank budweiseror or rainier beer?
(07:23):
I'm gonna guess dj, dj neverdrank.
Budweiser or Rainier beer, I'mgoing to guess DJ, dj never
drank the bad beer and I'll tellyou.
It's a great leadership lessonwhen you humble yourself and you
serve your followers, theybecome fiercely loyal.
In fact, one of my points inthe speech on my book the Art of
(07:45):
Influence is about how you gainloyalty through servanthood.
And if you want your employees,your clients, your customers,
you want them to be loyal to you, make sure they understand that
you are serving themsacrificially.
And it all came from hiswillingness to help me keep my
job and I was devoted to himuntil the time he passed away.
He passed away a heart attackwhen he was coaching in the
developmental league for the NBA, but it had profound impact on
(08:10):
me.
He didn't care that he was richand famous.
He didn't care that he wasblack and I was white.
He didn't care about, he washelping a little kid keep his
job.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Chris, I love that story, first of all because I
connect.
I'm a DJ, I'm a Celtics fan,larry Bird fan Love to hear that
.
In terms of how Bird talkedabout him, I do remember him
with the Supersonics and playing.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I think he played with Sigma, right yeah in fact,
I have an NBA championship ringand one of the reasons I have it
, or one of the things I like it, is because, number one, it's
just a beautiful time in my life.
Number two, it's a greatconversation speech, a
conversation starter in my life.
Number two, it's a greatconversation speech, a
conversation starter.
(08:48):
But number three is even a lotof diehard fans can't name a
single starter from that NBAteam and I always say it's the
most unsung team that ever wonan NBA championship.
If I say name some players fromthe Lakers Magic, Kareem, James
Worthy name from theics youknow larry bird name some from
the 76ers, dr j.
(09:10):
you know anybody can name mostof these teams, but even a lot
of nba players can't name or nbafans can't name the starting
five.
So the starting five was guswilliams, who passed away a few
weeks ago, dj.
Our small, small forward wasJohn Johnson, jj, and then our
power forward is Lonnie Shelton,who also passed away, and then
(09:31):
Jack Sigma was our startingcenter.
And then we had a guy on thebench, fred Brown.
Most people name actually mostpeople say downtown Freddie
Brown and he was our sixth man.
So I like the ring for thatbecause it represents what you
can do even if you're unsung,even if nobody knows you, you
can still win championships.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share
something special with you.
Many of the topics anddiscussions we have on this
podcast are areas where Iprovide coaching and consulting
services for individuals andorganizations.
If you've been inspired by ourconversation and are seeking a
catalyst for change in your ownlife or within your team, I
invite you to visitcoachjohngallaghercom forward
(10:10):
slash free call to sign up for afree coaching call with me.
It's an opportunity for us toconnect, discuss your unique
challenges and explore howcoaching or consulting can
benefit you and your team.
Okay, let's get back to theshow.
Amen.
So sports and leadership tiereally close together.
But the leadership story ofservant leadership is really
(10:33):
powerful as well.
You think about that as aleader of an organization and
often people will say, well,that's not fair, that he does
something like that gives thegood beer to DJ and not to the
others.
But what you're really lookingfor as a leader, when someone
will serve you, it's like saying, hey, if you will basically
show me that you're capable ofgoing that extra step, then I
(10:55):
will treat you differently,absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I didn't give him all the good beer, because he
wouldn't have been able to drivehome if I gave him all the good
beer.
That's right, there was asix-pack of St Paul he's a
six-pack of Heineken.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
That was it, but he got first choice.
There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
I got first choice every time.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Hey, the art of influence.
Let's stay there.
Write on that book too.
So you talked about in thisbook.
Okay, one of 25, I couldn't getready for all of your books,
but you write your books.
Let's start with how you writethem, and most of them in the
form of fables.
Tell me how you got kind ofstarted in writing that in
fables and I don't know if itgoes back to your time as a
pastor as well or not and Jesusspoke in parables.
(11:32):
And now you're speaking.
What was there?
Speaker 1 (11:35):
I wish it was something altruistic like that.
I had written a bunch of books.
I was starting my career, gotinvolved with John Maxwell.
I ghost wrote for John, I wrotehis nationally syndicated
column and then I decided Ididn't want to ghost write
anymore and I wanted.
I set out, I want to write abest selling book.
And I was looking at it veryformulaic, very practical.
(11:59):
So at the time when I wrote mybook called the Angel Inside,
which is my best selling book ofall time, number two on the
Wall Street Journal, numberseven on the New York Times,
number three on Amazon overall,not in a category.
Overall, in fact, the only twobooks that beat that on Amazon
were the pre-release of HarryPotter and the lost book of JRR
(12:19):
Tolkien that his grandson foundin his attic after his grandpa
died, that his grandson found inhis attic after his grandpa
died.
And so I'm like, if I'm goingto be number three okay, the
best-selling fictions of alltime and one of the greatest
Christian writers of all timeI'll take number three.
It makes me feel like I'mnumber one.
So I was looking like whatcould I write?
That's very creative.
Well, another book that was abest seller at the time was the
Da Vinci Code and everybody wasinto Da Vinci.
(12:42):
There was a self-help bookcalled how to Think Like
Leonardo da Vinci and I thoughtI don't want to write another
one on da Vinci.
But Michelangelo lived thereand so I started looking at
Florence Italy in the early1500s Now Florence, italy was
only 50,000 people and so Istarted looking in there where
there was four major people thatlived there.
(13:04):
One of them was sort of parttime, raphael, kind of lived
there part time.
So the three that were Florenceresidents lived there, born
there, raised there, died.
There were Leonardo da Vinci,michelangelo, and those two did
not like each other at all.
And then the third one wasMachiavelli, and I'm like I
immediately got rid ofMachiavelli and I'm not writing
(13:30):
a book on self-help fromMachiavelli's perspective.
So that left me withMichelangelo and I didn't know a
lot about him.
So I ended up looking throughhis history and I thought I
could write a self-help bookbased on his life, the
principles of Michelangelo, andso I had two people who said
random things to me thatcompletely changed the book I
was going to write.
(13:50):
One was I don't know if youremember the old motivational
speaker he's contemporary ofZiggs and Jim's.
He wasn't ever as famous asthem, but his name was Charlie
Tremendous Jones.
Charlie was amazing.
The biggest personality I'veever met in my life was Charlie
Tremendous Jones and in fact thefirst time I ever met him I
(14:11):
walked up to him and said MrJones, we have a mutual friend
in Kyle.
And he goes and he's six footfive.
He weighed like 300 pounds.
He leans over to me, he goes.
You know, kyle's a brother ofmine.
Are you a brother of mine?
He was asking me if I was aChristian and I said I am a
brother of yours, at which pointI've known him less than 15
seconds.
(14:31):
At this point he puts his handsunder my armpits, lifts me six
inches off of the ground andplants a big kiss on my cheek.
That's Charlie Tremendous Jones.
You've never met a guy likeCharlie.
He was something else.
Charlie says to me Chris, makeit short.
Nobody reads thick booksanymore.
(14:52):
Make it short.
So I thought, okay, interesting.
Then another friend of mine,mark Sanborn, who's Hall of Fame
speaker, wrote a book calledthe Fred Factor, 5 million
copies in print.
President of the NationalSpeaker Association, mark says
to me you know what you shoulddo, chris.
You should write it like aparable.
(15:12):
And I went huh, okay, I will.
So again, I'm just looking at aformula to write a bestselling
book because I was tired ofghostwriting for other people, I
was tired of writing mediumselling books, whatever.
So I went into a Barnes Noble inBellevue, washington, where I
was living in Seattle at thetime.
I walk in there, I walk to thebusiness section.
(15:33):
I find a 10-blanchard book, oneMinute Manager.
I open it up.
I counted how many words wereon one page.
I went to how many pages therewere.
Multiplied it 20,000.
So all of my books are well,almost all of my books the
fiction ones are all between 20and 25,000 words.
I released this book became abig international bestseller 14
(15:53):
languages, the whole thing.
And so Art of Influence wasjust another one of those books
I ended up.
We self-published it sold120,000 copies.
Then I sold it to Random Houseon a two book deal and the
second book became the Art ofInfluence.
So it's a fictional story abouta young man, first guy to ever
go to college in his family,certainly the first guy to ever
(16:15):
get his MBA.
And the book opens with him ata backyard barbecue back in
Kansas where they were throwinghim a party and his grandmother,
who he barely knew from SouthDakota, comes down to the party
and she hands him an envelopefor his gift.
Now in the book, a lot ofthings, a lot of fun things
about writing fictional books isyou can incorporate stories
from your life and just changethem.
(16:36):
In fact, I'll tell you a coupleof little Easter eggs in the
book that are kind of fun.
Um so um.
She hands him an envelope andthe the idea is is I don't know
when you were growing up, whatyour grandmother gave you every
year for for your birthday wasusually an envelope with a $5
bill in it.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
I got you Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Those of you who are younger and you're used to
getting playstations and stufflike that.
You know, john and I we got $5in our in an envelope.
You know that's what we got itwas.
It was standard.
I don't even think I lived longenough to get my grandmother to
give me 10 bucks for mybirthday.
It was always a $5 bill it hada little window too.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
You could see Lincoln in the window Right.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
But then the other funny thing is for the young
people is you know, that wasgreat for us because you could
get a Snickers bar for 15 centsMaybe 10 cents actually, but you
could go buy 30 candy bars for15 cents, so anyway.
So I ended up writing the andso.
But inside the envelope shesays you get to spend a week
(17:34):
with Bobby Gold.
Well, Bobby Gold's a fictionalcharacter, but he's like the
10th or 15th richest guy inAmerica and he thinks his
grandmother's gone crazy.
He's like how, what are youtalking about?
Like, how do I get to spend aweek with Bobby Gold?
And she goes oh, I probablynever told you, but I was his
nanny when he was a little boy.
(17:54):
And so he gets to spend a week.
And so the story of the art ofinfluence is is Bobby Gold
teaching Marcus the lessons ofthe art of influence?
And he basically says look.
When they first meet, he sayslook, I know you graduated from
Keller Kellogg school ofbusiness.
I know you know Kellogg Schoolof Business.
I know you know the science ofbusiness.
I'm going to teach you the artof business.
And the art of business is theart of influence.
So that's the premise of thebook and four lessons, lessons
(18:16):
on integrity, optimism, serviceand excellence.
But before we dive into it,I'll tell you a couple of the
little Easter eggs.
The jet in that book is JeffBezoszos jet, his first jet not
anymore, he sold that it was aFalcon 900 EX extended range and
one of the guys that went to mychurch was Jeff's personal
(18:38):
pilot.
So I was going to write thisthing and so he was always down
at Boeing field.
So I called him up and I said Ineed to write about a jet.
Can I come down and look atJeff's jet?
And he goes yeah, sure, come ondown, I'm just hanging out.
So the jet in that is isactually Jeff Bezos.
That's awesome.
The second little Easter egg isthere is that Bobby Gold owns a
baseball team and one of thethings he does in the service
(19:00):
chapter you know, serving othersis they're at a baseball game.
He owns a fictional Chicagobaseball team and about two or
three innings into it he sayscome on, let's go.
And they start walking aroundthe stadium and he starts
talking like he knows everyusher's name, he knows every
vendor's name and he walks up tohim Bob, how are you doing?
(19:21):
Bob has seven kids and 14grandkids and blah, blah, blah.
Well, that's based on a friendof mine who was also a member of
my church when I was a pastor,who was.
The first thing was 17 years asa CFO of the Mariners and the
last seven years president.
Ceo of the Mariners and I wouldgo to a lot of Mariners games.
We always sat in the owner'sbox and then when he became
(19:42):
president he had his own box sowe'd sit there, but every time
by about the third inning he, myfriend Kevin, would say get up,
let's go.
And we walked to that stadiumand we would go to the third
deck in the outfield and he knewthe ushers.
Wow, all those people loved himbecause he cared more about
them than he cared about thefact that he was the president
and could be sitting in his ownlittle box.
(20:03):
So, um, great leadership.
Those are a couple of littleEaster eggs in the in.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Those are Easter eggs , those are really cool.
And as I read through thosegolden rules, as you said,
integrity, attitude, um, the,the importance of others'
interests, uh, which is in thatstory, right there.
And then, don't settle foranything less than excellence,
and that one, you know, for me,uh, you know, I I believe the
first book that I write is goingto be titled Excellence Only
(20:28):
Happens on Purpose.
You have to be very intentionalto build that space and there
was a quote in there.
He said inside of that chapterit says gain influence by making
money.
You gain even more by giving itaway.
Now, first of all, I'd like youto chat with me about that word
excellence and kind of what thatmeans to you, Because you even
(20:53):
talked about little stories likethat but also little examples
of excellence.
For me, it's when somebodyleaves a shopping cart in the
parking lot.
It just drives me crazy.
From a pet peeve standpoint,I'm going to push it back into
the corral or into the store,whatever it takes.
But that quote you can gaininfluence by making money.
Gain even more by giving itaway.
That's like bigger than evenexcellence, that's kingdom type
impact.
What is there for you in thatword, excellence?
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Well, remember what Jesus said.
Jesus said to give your wealthaway to your friends so that you
might be received into heavenright, and he doesn't mean that
you earn your way into heaven bygiving your money away.
He means that by giving yourmoney away, you'll have impact
and those people will see you inheaven.
That's what he meant thatyou'll be received by all these
(21:35):
other people for whom your moneymade an impact.
Use your wealth to gain friendsis actually what Jesus said,
and a lot of people go whoa.
Use your wealth to gain friends.
He doesn't mean you're buyingfriendships.
He means you're distributingyour wealth.
You're a generous giver.
You know you're giving thatmoney away.
But excellence I believe thatevery human being is created in
(21:57):
the image of God, and the imageof God is excellence.
There's nothing in God that isanything less than perfection,
and we are created in the imageof God and every single one of
us is given gifts and talentsthat God has given us in which
we can exhibit excellence.
And I believe that whatever wedo, whatever we say, whatever we
(22:19):
write, whatever we think,should be set up against the
standard of excellence, Becausethe Bible also says whatsoever,
you put your hand to thestandard of excellence, Because
the Bible also says whatsoeveryou put your hand to do it as
though you're doing it under theLord.
In fact, there's a Christianband that many of you have
probably heard of, calledCasting Crowns.
That's the name of the bigChristian band.
It comes from the story in thebook of Revelation where all the
(22:42):
people in heaven will taketheir crowns and they will cast
them at the feet of Jesus, andthe crowns are embedded with
jewels and all those kinds ofthings and a lot of people
theologians think that thosejewels represent our good works
in our life and then we're givena crown based on our good works
in life.
We don't earn salvation withour good works, but we get this
crown, and so the act of takingour crown and casting it is my
(23:06):
life was yours, All of my goodworks were yours, all of this.
So I always joke and I say whenyou get to heaven, you want a
diamond, ruby, emerald,encrusted, you know, gold crown.
You don't want one of those oldBurger King paper crowns, right
?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
You don't want to show It'll still be a crown, but
it's not the same, it'll stillbe a crown.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
You'll get in, but you won't have much to offer,
right?
So the idea is number one wewant to be excellent because
it's representative of God'sexcellence and we are made in
the image of God.
You know, I'm probably the onlyguy you know who cries watching
the Voice, because the TV show,the Voice.
Sometimes I will hear somesinger just amazing singer and
I'll start to cry, not becausethey're so good, but because of
(23:55):
how good God is.
Like, look at the person, lookat the gift that God gave this
person.
I always look at God when Ihear something amazing or see
something amazing or somethinglike that, because it's from the
hand of God, it's so incredible.
So the idea of excellence and Ilike your ideas that excellence
(24:17):
is a choice.
We get to choose what we'regoing to do.
So what I always teach peopleis take a look at your life,
finances, relationships,marriage, business, health and
ask yourself can I raise mystandard of excellence?
Now, there's some things.
If you put a scale of one to 10, there's some things that
people are nines or tens at.
They're excellent at it, butthat excellent part may be being
(24:39):
undone because they have anarea of their life where they
are not particularly excellentand it undermines their ability
to influence other people.
I knew a guy, a preacher, once,who was like 150 pounds
overweight and one of hiscongregation told him one time I
just got to tell you I have areally hard time listening to
you, particularly when you talkabout discipline and
(25:02):
disciplining yourself to prayand disciplining yourself to
give, and he's like you don'tdemonstrate it and it's the
first thing people see from you.
Well, this guy lost so muchweight that one time I was at a
retreat and there was anotherchurch using the retreat center
and it was a pastor that I knew,but he knew this other pastor
(25:24):
that had been told he was toofat and they were talking.
I walked up to the pastor Iknew.
I didn't even talk to this guywho I was good friends with,
because I hadn't seen him inlike a year and a half.
I literally did not evenrecognize the guy.
He had brought himself fromlike 375 to like 175 or
something like that, so much soI didn't even recognize.
(25:45):
I'm talking to Jeff and I'm noteven talking to this guy, but he
wanted to eliminate that poordemonstration of excellence
because it was affecting.
He was a great preacher, greatBible teacher and but it was
affecting his ability to what hewas excellent at because he
wasn't excellent at another areaof his life.
So I always tell people improveyour level of excellence as
(26:07):
much as you possibly can,because in the book I talk about
this in my speeches.
Excellence commands respect.
People respect people who livea life of excellence.
They might not even have certainthings, but the best way for
you to show up and haveinfluence is, you know,
integrity, yes.
Optimism, yes, service, yes,but there's also excellence.
(26:30):
Number one is always integrity.
The others you can put whateverorder you want, but excellence
is such.
It builds the ability toinfluence.
And I always use this examplethe celebrity endorsement.
The celebrity endorsement isbasically a product taking a
person of excellence, mergingthe two, and it allows you to
(26:50):
sell more of the product becausethey associate it with the
person, and I always use MichaelJordan as an example.
Michael Jordan made more moneyas an endorser than he did in
his salary.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
As a basketball player.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
As a basketball player.
And so why did they chooseMichael Jordan?
Because he was now, I alwayssay, the greatest player in the
nba history.
But I only say that becauseeverybody else is too young to
remember wilt chamberlain, who'sactually the greatest player to
ever play in the end.
And you don't even want to getan argument with me on that.
I figured we don't have enoughtime, do we?
50 years after he retired fromthe nba, he still owns 72 nba
(27:30):
records, kind of hard to arguewith that, but anyway, um, you
know, think about Wheaties.
What is a Wheatie?
I had one guy yell from theaudience it's corn, corn.
It's like a corn flake.
I'm like no, that's cornies.
Wheaties is a baked flake ofwheat, that's it.
But their brand is thebreakfast of champions.
(27:53):
Absolutely.
Do we really believe that everyfour years at the summer
olympics, some guys gettingready to run the 1500 and they
say, hey, you got your racetoday.
What are you gonna do?
I'm gonna go down and havethree bowls of wheaties.
No, breakfast of champions islike white the egg, whites, lean
meats, fruit.
That's the breakfast ofchampions, not Wheaties.
(28:13):
But they were brilliant.
They take Nadia Comaneci, thefirst person to ever get a 10,
she's a breakfast of champion.
Michael Jordan, you know BruceJenner, you know all these
people they put them on the Iremember Mary Lou Retton on the
front of one, being from WestVirginia as well.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Absolutely, she was on there, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I always make this joke that some guys looking at
some guys looking at Wheatiesand goes well, michael Jordan
eats Wheaties.
If I eat Wheaties, maybe Icould dunk.
No, you're five, two, two, 40.
You're never going to dunk, butthey've built this idea.
Nike everybody knows Nike, airJordans.
I asked the question what doesMichael Jordan drink when he's
during a timeout?
Everybody yells Gatorade.
(28:50):
They've built these brands bypartnering with someone of
excellence.
So what I always say is is ifyou wanna have more influence in
the lives of other people, ifyou want people to respect you,
if you want people to rememberyour name, you are product.
You are the product.
You're always selling product.
You are the product.
You're always selling yourself.
You are the product.
(29:11):
And the first thing they'regoing to ask is is this
excellent?
And if you're excellent, you'redeep into being able to
influence those people.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Love that and I love the conversation going all the
way back to your start about thediscipline that's required to
do that.
I use a quote that says youknow, good intention, which we
have.
We often.
We do have good intention aboutour health, finances, career,
whatever those things are, butgood intention without
discipline will lead to excuses.
Good intention with gooddiscipline leads to excellence.
It's printed on that coffee mugright there.
(29:42):
I mean absolutely.
I mean that word is reallysomething that—important is
probably not the right word, butit elicits a response from me
when someone says that, even asit being a biblical quote,
whatever you do, do it withexcellence and do it for God.
I mean those are things thatexist inside of that space.
Whether it's picking up a pieceof paper that they talk about
(30:05):
in the book as you're walkingthrough you know a room, or
whether it's putting a shoppingcart back in the shopping cart
corral or, frankly, whether it'sbeing the best basketball
player in the world, like WillChamberlain was best ever.
Okay, We'll give, we'll give awe'll Chamberlain.
I don't know that I could arguewith it on this call.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Martin Luther King Jr said do whatever you do with
excellence.
If you're a street keeper, ifyou're a street sweeper be the
greatest street sweeper, thegreatest Yep Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So.
That book is really cool and Icould spend even the call on
another book that influenced meand I think how we ended up.
Connecting was really aboutfaith and you've touched on that
just a little bit.
You have one that's come outreally recently called the
Coming American Revival, whichwas not written in the form of a
fable, so in writing that book,the Coming American Revival,
(30:54):
tell me a little bit about thatbook, what it meant to you, but
who'd you write it for?
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Well, so I was writing my 25th book, called
Capitalism, or the Capitalist isthe working title, and it was
going to be a fiction story.
It was going to be about abillionaire who hosted a family
reunion at his mansion inJackson Hole his estate in
Jackson Hole at the request ofhis 94-year-old grandmother.
Will you hold a big familyreunion?
I'm getting old?
Well, his sister brings hervery, very, very, very
(31:21):
ultra-liberal daughter to thisevent and she hates her uncle
because he's a billionaire.
So the book is.
Eventually I'm going to releaseit.
I'm 40% of the way through, butit's the conversations between
this billionaire and hisanti-capitalist niece.
So anyway, 40% of the waythrough that book, I felt like
God said I want you to write abook on revival.
(31:42):
So I'm like all right, I'llhave to dust off my pastor's hat
.
So I started doing a lot ofresearch on revival the first
great awakening, second greatawakening, third great awakening
, azusa Street revival and theJesus people revival.
They usually come 50 to 70years or have, so we're about
due for a revival.
So I did a research on therevivals, things we learned from
(32:04):
those revivals, talked aboutwhy we need revival and the
spiritual bankruptcy that thechurch has in America today.
One of the reasons we're soineffective is because we're
just lukewarm.
You take the average Christian.
Take away Sunday morning andWednesday night.
They look exactly like everyother person in America.
They spend their money the sameway, they watch the same movies
, they listen to the same music,they go to the same places.
(32:26):
They look exactly like the restof the world.
And that's the problem.
And so I have chapters in there.
What revival would look like ineducation?
What revival would look like inentertainment?
What revival would look like inentertainment?
What revival would look like inbusiness?
What revival would look like inthe church?
And then I end the book withtwo sort of add-ons.
One is an analysis of RichardFoster's spiritual disciplines
(32:49):
that he talks about in the bookSpirit of the Disciplines.
That might be Dallas Willard'sbook, but the one Richard Foster
wrote, challenge of theDisciplines, I think.
And then I end the book with a31-day devotional.
First 10 days are aboutpersonal revival.
Second 10 days are about churchrevival.
Third 10 days are aboutnational revival.
(33:11):
And then the last day, the 31stday, is a where do you go from
here?
So wrote that book came out,hit a lot of the lists on Amazon
and such.
I gave the very first book toPresident Trump because I knew
him, I used to put on Trumpevents so I gave the very first
copy to him, got a really niceletter back from him about the
(33:31):
book, which now in our livingroom I have a big beautiful
frame with the cover of the bookand the letter from President
Trump.
But Senator Tim Scott fromSouth Carolina is the cover
endorsement of the book and theletter from President Trump.
But Senator Tim Scott fromSouth Carolina is the cover
endorsement of the book.
Country star John Rich wrote anendorsement for the book.
So I got a really wide varietyof endorsers on that book.
(33:52):
But it's doing well and itbecame the premise for a revival
meeting that we're putting onin May 3rd in Jacksonville that
we're going to live stream tothousands of churches, prisons,
colleges, universities, everymilitary base in the world.
We'll have 10 or 15,000 peopleat that event.
People are interested.
They can go to revive25.org andfind out more about the event.
(34:15):
But I just believe that we'reon the cusp of revival.
It's already starting to bubbleup.
You see it a lot in prisons,you're seeing it a lot on
college campuses and so you gotthese little bubblings all over
America.
You know, and I think reallywe're just ripe for somebody to
call the church to repentanceand to turn their hearts back to
(34:37):
God, and God led us to do that.
I have a couple partners.
The whole event is nonprofit.
All monies are going to bedistributed to 501c3s and we're
excited about it.
We've got some amazing partnersnational religious broadcasters
, whose members reach 174million people a month.
Praycom, which has 18 milliondownloads.
(34:59):
Pushpay, the number one churchdonation processor.
They're donating all thestreaming through a company they
own called Resi, a companycalled Glue, which is the number
one texting platform in Americafor churches.
They have 90,000 churches thatare paying customers.
So everything's just comingtogether.
God has just networked thiswhole thing together.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Have I seen this advertised on the Bible app as
well, craig?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Roussel's Bible app.
No, we really haven'tadvertised it.
Advertise might?
Be the right word, but You'reactually the very first person
that I've ever even saidanything to about the website.
The website went live yesterday.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Oh, wow, wow, Fantastic.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
So, yeah, we're at the very beginning stages, we're
under 90 days, but we alreadyhave people coming out and
volunteering to speak,volunteering to sing.
The very first person that wetalked to she reached out to me
on LinkedIn Chyna Phillips, oneof the three Wilson Phillips
band.
She's married to Billy Baldwin.
Her mom and dad were half ofthe group Mamas and Papas, yeah,
(35:57):
so we're getting a lot of.
We're talking to trying to getDenzel Washington to come out.
He just got ordained and isgoing into ministry.
Talking to Russell Brand, we'vegot a bunch of preachers, some
great preachers, musicians,worship leaders, all of that.
So it's going to be a realgreat day of revival.
It's not a show.
There will be great, we will doit with excellence, but it's
(36:22):
not a show.
It's really driven to call thechurch to get back and to get
right with God.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Love that.
I mean.
I think that word revival is somisunderstood.
I've had a conversation withsomeone recently and said you
know about an event that I'll beworking at in March for
Christian business leaders andreally their personal
development, running theirbusinesses as a ministry as well
, and you know, kind of talkingabout some of the ideas, and one
of the individuals says I don'twant it to really be a revival,
(36:49):
though I'm like I think it hasto be a revival.
So there's like this feeling ofthe revival.
The Southern Baptist revival is, you know, bible thumpers,
snakes and owls and things likethat, but revival is you define
it in your book, I love it aspiritual awakening from a state
of dormancy.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
I love that simple definition.
It literally means again,re-means again.
Vival is from the Latin termviva life.
It means life again, come tolife again, which it reminds me
of the book of Revelation, allthose seven letters to the seven
churches, and one of them hesaid you know, go back to doing
(37:25):
the things that you did.
You know, regain your firstlove, do the things you did at
the beginning.
And so many people, they're allexcited for God and they're on
fire for God, and then theyslowly die.
But it's not just yourspiritual revival.
Your spiritual revival bringsabout marriage.
Revival brings about health.
Revival brings about moneyrevival.
(37:45):
It's bringing all of thosethings to life again under the
spiritual covering that we havewhen we have a relationship with
Christ.
And so we need to come to lifeagain.
The church is dead.
I mean, if you think about it,it's anemic at best.
We have more money, morechurches, more Christians, more
(38:07):
conferences, more books, moreaudio programs, more podcasts
than we ever have in the historyof the church, and we're anemic
at best.
We have no cultural influence.
Why?
Because there's no power behindit.
That's the problem.
We need to be brought to lifeagain.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
I have followed Craig Rochelle for a while, both this
leadership podcast and LifeChurch and he had a five-part
series recently calledChristian-ish.
That you know, we say we'reChristian but we're kind of
Christian, we're Christian-ish.
You talk about that being theSunday and the Wednesday night,
so to speak, but what are ourlives display that make us
Christian?
That we should really be doing,and I love you know the
(38:46):
criteria to talk about that.
You know the Christian will behumble, they will repent, they
will pray, they'll proclaim thegospel and they'll love their
neighbors, and all of thosethings together are things that
are critical, and it's anotherpodcast I think I could talk
about the whole time.
I'm so glad you wrote it Well.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
The other thing is there's a difference between a
revival and evangelistic meeting.
Sometimes people say I went toa Billy Graham revival meeting.
No, he didn't.
He didn't do revival meetings,he did evangelistic outreach.
This is going to be about thechurch.
Will some people who are justpursuing the faith come?
Sure, some.
This isn't about evangelism.
We're not going to have, youknow, come forward and receive
(39:26):
Jesus.
We might not, because therewill be some people and through
churches and prisons and thelike, you know there will be
some people.
But it's really a message tothe church because if the church
gets revived, evangelism takescare of itself.
Right, evangel, right.
So you have two kinds ofChristians sitting in the
churches.
One is that are not revived,they're kind of just
(39:47):
Christian-ish right.
Number one is the person thatnever talks about Jesus to
anybody.
Well, they would if they had adeep relationship with Jesus.
The other one is those who tryto talk to people about Jesus
but they have no power in theirlife and the people just go yeah
, why don't you figure your lifeout first and then come tell me
about Jesus, right?
So the key here is to inflamethat church and fan the flames,
(40:12):
get them going again and therest of it takes care of itself,
feeding the poor, witnessing ofChrist.
All those things take place outof a church that is alive.
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Love that.
I wish I could take more timeto spend.
I just got a couple morequestions.
I want to honor your time,chris, as we go through this.
A little bit about you.
So you've had the privilege ofI use the term learning from
giants but also influencinggiants.
These guys, john Maxwell, zigZiglar, jim Rohn Tell me your
favorite Maxwell story have fun.
One that you've never toldbefore.
(40:44):
That's going to get somebody introuble, kind of thing.
No, but not in a lawsuit.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
It popped right into my mind.
Okay, so it's a funny storyabout John.
In fact, I saw John about threemonths ago at an event and I
reminded him of this story I had.
John was one of the speakers.
I was one of the speakersWhitaker I can't remember his
first name he was the firstAmerican up Mount Everest.
(41:11):
He was one of our speakers andas was Vince Lombardi Jr.
So Jim Whitaker was his name,founder of REI.
Him and his brother founded REIand he was the first American
up.
Well, this was in 2002,september 26th 2002.
Well, he got to the top of MountEverest on May 3rd or May 4th,
(41:37):
1974.
So or no, pardon me, it was 50years later.
Anyway, he was coming up onsome you know it was, he was
about 18 months from you knowbig anniversary going up.
And so we were standing thereit was me and John and Jim
Whitaker, and he had announcedto the audience that he was
(41:58):
taking people who wanted to gowith him.
He would take them up and hewould go to base camp.
He wasn't going to take themall the way to the top of Mount
Everest, but he was going totake them up.
So, anyway, we were standingthere and John says, and you
know, john, big goals, bigdreams.
And John says I'm coming to my,I'm coming up Mount Everest
(42:20):
with you, I'm coming on MountEverest with you.
And Jim stepped back and helooked at John and he goes.
Are you sure John goes?
I do 45 minutes a day on thetreadmill.
He goes.
You better do about four hoursa day on the treadmill.
So that's a kind of a funnystory that might get me in
trouble.
But but it's true.
(42:41):
You know you had to be intip-top shape if you were going
to go with Jim Whitaker.
Like I didn't even think aboutit, I looked at myself in the
mirror that day.
There's no way I'm going upMount Everest with Jim Whitaker.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I appreciate you sharing.
You know those have been andJohn laughed about it, so he
would Absolutely no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
I don't read, I hardly read, any books that are
contemporary.
I barely ever read a bookthat's contemporary.
I like to read biographies ofdead guys.
I like to read books written bydead guys, and I'll tell you
why because there's so muchVogue content.
You know, right now it's allabout habits.
Everybody's got their habitsbooks, right.
(43:44):
You know everybody.
You know just Google.
Go to Amazon and type in theword, the F word, and you'll see
how many books have the F wordin it now, cause there was one
book that took off and had the Fword in it.
Now everybody's got an F wordbook.
You know, it's like everybodyjust piles on because they want
to be a bestseller.
The dead guys wrote to changelives, the new guys write books
(44:06):
to get speaking engagements, andso I I rarely read any sort of
contemporary books.
Rarely.
I read dead guys andparticularly I focus in on, you
know, founding Fathers.
I'm reading through anything byAndrew Murray, anything by AW
(44:26):
Tozer, anything by CharlesFinney.
I'm reading Confessions byAugustine right now, because if
it's still true a thousand yearslater or a hundred years later,
it's a universal truth, and soI try to fill myself with that
kind of thing mostly.
Speaker 2 (44:47):
Love that.
Thanks for sharing, Chris.
How do folks stay in touch withyou or learn more about you?
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Well, they can go to revive25.org if they want to
know about the revive or orgrevive25.org if they want to
find out about that revival.
We also have a place there ifyou're interested in sponsoring
or vending or any of those kindsof things.
But chrisweidnercom is mywebsite.
Chris at chrisweidner is myemail, chris at chrisweidnercom.
And be happy if there's any wayI can help you or any of those
(45:14):
kinds of things.
Happy to do it.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Chris, fantastic.
I'll make sure to put thoselinks in your email address in
the show notes so that folkshave access to it.
I'll give you the last wordhere.
The question I always end upwith on my with my first time
guests I'm going to give you abillboard.
You can place it anywhere youwant to, whether it's in there
in Chattanooga where you are, oranywhere else you want to put
it up in Seattle, it doesn'tmatter to me where you put it,
billboard, and why do you putthat message on there?
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Well, I'm going to tell you a story briefly.
I'll condense it because I knowwe're short on time, but I
would put the phrase that Iheard in this story.
I was at a Christian conferencewhen I was like 22 years old,
23 years old, right out of Biblecollege, and there's 500 people
there.
It was in Edmonton, alberta.
I didn't know a single soul.
And you know, during the breaksyou're kind of standing there
with your coffee and I don'tknow anybody.
(46:00):
And I turn around and I comeface to face with a woman who's
about 55 and a woman who's about30, like bam, there they are,
and the woman who's 30 does this, doesn't say a word.
And her mother looks at me,looks at her, looks at me, looks
at her.
And her mother looks at me,looks at her, looks at me, looks
at her, looks at me, looks ather and goes.
Is that him?
(46:20):
And she goes still has said nota word.
Her mother says OK, this isprobably weird to you, but I got
to tell you the story.
This is my daughter.
We're here for the conference.
Last night, at two in themorning, she woke up, bolted out
of bed, woke me up and said Mom, I just had the weirdest dream.
(46:41):
I saw this man's face and Godtold me to tell him something.
So she looks at her daughterand says tell him To the mom.
It was just nonchalant.
So tell him.
And the younger woman says I'msupposed to tell you, and this
is what I would put on abillboard.
I've told this story so manytimes.
She said I'm supposed to tellyou.
(47:01):
Be a voice, not an echo.
I never saw them again.
I didn't get their names, Idon't know who they are, I don't
know where they live, don'tknow anything about them.
But I've remembered that for 36years now 34, 35, 36 years now.
Be a voice, not an echo, whichis probably why I like reading
dead guys and not all the peoplethat pile on to write a
(47:23):
bestselling book, and I think itis so good.
It's such great advice.
Do your own work, do your ownthinking.
Don't just regurgitate whatother people are doing.
Don't regurgitate something youheard from somebody else.
Sure, quote them, but give themcredit for it.
If I had a nickel for everysingle time somebody quoted Jim
Rohn as their own, I'd be a rich, rich, rich, rich, rich, rich
(47:46):
man, because everybody tries topass off work harder on yourself
than you do on your job andpeople post those things as
though they're themselves.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Average of the five people.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, and in the comment section I always write I
love Jim Rohn quotes.
Anyway, I think it's important,if you're in business, be the
voice, not the echo.
Deliver something above andbeyond.
Deliver something unique to you.
Don't just deliver what everyother HVAC company's offering.
Don't just deliver what everyother furniture store is
(48:16):
offering.
Offer something else.
Be a voice, not an echo.
And I love that and that'sprobably what I would put on a
bill.
Else be a voice, not an echo,and I love that, and that's
probably what I would put on abillboard.
Be a voice, not an echo.
Speaker 2 (48:24):
So much fun to share.
Chris, thank you so much.
I have appreciated our time andI really appreciate I know the
listeners have that you've addedvalue to those on the Uncommon
Leader podcast.
I wish you the best in thefuture and look forward to
connecting at some point again.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (48:42):
I appreciate it.
And that wraps up anotherepisode of the Uncommon Leader
Podcast.
Thanks for tuning in today.
If you found value in thisepisode, I encourage you to
share it with your friends,colleagues or anyone else who
could benefit from the insightsand inspiration we've shared.
Also, if you have a moment, I'dgreatly appreciate if you could
leave a rating and review onyour favorite podcast platform.
Your feedback not only helps usto improve, but it also helps
(49:05):
others discover the podcast andjoin our growing community of
uncommon leaders.
Until next time, go and growchampions.
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