Surrendering Into the Experience of Life with Chris Wise

In this Episode

• [02:01]Chris starts us off by telling us some of his life story. We hear about how he was living a dream life, then was arrested on a plane and handed off to the Secret Service. He then talks about his prison experience, offering fascinating insight into how the prison mentality functions.
• [08:48]Chris steps back a couple years, describing work he did with his spiritual mentor.
• [11:14]About six months before the prison incident, Chris had a desire that prison later unexpectedly fulfilled.
• [11:53]Having shared these other events, Chris returns to the story he was telling about one of his experiences in prison.
• [13:07]The story he just shared wasn’t the only run-in with violence that Chris had during his time in prison. He talks about another one that didn’t turn out as well as the last. His reaction to this second incident of violence was his defining in prison.
• [15:54]Stephan shares a story of his own about responding to darkness with light or love.
• [18:10]Returning to the story of his second violent run-in, Chris discusses some of the aftermath.
• [19:45]While meditating after this incident, Chris had what he describes as “a direct experience with God.” From this, he gained three essential elements: 1. “Life is a gift.” 2. “I cannot be destroyed.” 3. “I will follow my heart, no matter what, even until death.”
• [22:09]After this experience, how long did Chris have left in his situation of being alienated from his former group in prison?
• [24:34]Chris clarifies that, while he’s in a body, he himself is the consciousness that enlivens that body. He then talks about state-changing as it relates to his prison experience, as well as the fundamental flaw in that technique.
• [26:54]Stephan and Chris discuss the importance of letting yourself feel emotions rather than suppressing or resisting them.
• [28:09]We hear about Chris’ first night in prison.
• [30:46]“Life is too perfect to be fair,” Chris said a moment ago. Here, he expands on that. He and Stephan then talk about the relation between the concept of “fairness” and expectation of a certain outcome.
• [32:26]Encountering a situation where you feel you’re being treated unfairly is an opportunity to step into a deeper level of faith and trust, Chris explains.
• [33:55]Chris clarifies what he had said before about his parents. He then talks more about how his childhood experiences and relationship with his parents have contributed to his later experiences.
• [37:17]Chris shares more of what has occurred for him. Most powerfully, he has become his own source of happiness and satisfaction in a way that allows him to let go of control of outcomes.
• [40:19]We hear Chris’ thoughts on the integration of masculine and feminine energies that has occurred in his body after he was released from prison.
• [40:56]What’s the benefit of integrating masculine and feminine energy?
• [44:13]Chris elaborates on the role of Krav Maga in his life and his experience of masculinity. He then talks about how experience his prison experience might have been if he hadn’t studied Krav Maga.
• [47:12]Stephan asks whether Chris was tempted to say a more casual, “I love you, man” during the previous prison experience he mentioned, as this would be less vulnerable. Here, Chris responds.
• [48:00]How is Chris putting all this love into action these days? He talks about his current interest in working with conscious leaders. Within profitability, there needs to be concern for treatment of customers, employees, vendors, the community, and society, he tells us.
• [50:46]There are eight building blocks that Chris looks at when he’s scaling a company, with the first four as follows: 1. How their teams are structured. 2. Their actual cash management plan. 3. How they’re executing inside their organization. 4. Their growth methodology.
• [52:23]How would someone reach Chris if they’re interested in working with him? He explains that he generally works with companies that are doing at least $1 million in revenue and want to scale beyond $10 million. He then discusses the complementary strategy sessions he offers. If you’re interested, you can email him at chris@chriswise.com with “Strategy Session” in the subject line.

Jump to Links and Resources

Transcript

‏‏Hello and welcome to Get Yourself Optimized. I’m your host Stephan Spencer and today I have the distinct pleasure of inviting onto the show Chris Wise. At the age of 12, Chris started his first business sharpening chainsaw chains. At 16, he founded his first technology company Wise Enterprises. Chris dropped out of college and left behind a full scholarship to pursue the expansion of this company. And it paid off, as the growth of this company created a millionaire of himself by the time he was 21. He’s co-authored three books and a movie with key business and personal development leaders Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, and Bob Proctor. As a mastermind of system structure and design, Chris has a genius ability to bring order from chaos in the most complex of business environments. I’ve known Chris for a little while here through a group we’re both involved in the LA area called METAL: Media Entertainment Technology Alpha Leaders. Chris just really impressed me in one of his recent speeches on the METAL stage, just really touched me. Consequently, here he is on the show today. Chris, it’s great to have you on the show.

‏‏Yeah, thanks for having me, Stephan.

‏‏Let’s talk about first of all your story because you have a really compelling story. It’s very out of the ordinary and I think it will really touch our listeners to hear it.

‏‏Yeah, awesome, thanks. I’m happy to share it. Prior to this all happening, the story and how I  actually discovered freedom from 19 months in federal prison, I had created a pretty amazing life. I was running three different virtual companies, had a beautiful Colombian girlfriend. We were traveling the world, we were living in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico living on the beach. We did what we wanted. Life felt like a vacation, like a permanent vacation. We had the six-month world tour planned out. We were flying in from Puerto Vallarta to Los Angeles because my girlfriend at the time was going to be doing the Landmark Forum. We’re flying in, the plane lands, it’s taxying on the tarmac, all of a sudden the plane stops and over the loudspeaker comes, “Hold on everybody, customs need to come on board.” The next thing I know is this big black dude walking down the aisle stopped next to my chair. I look up, he goes, “Christopher Wise?” I’m like, “Yeah.” He goes, “You’re under arrest.” I stand up, they handcuff me, my hands are behind my back and they walk me off the plane. I’m wide-eyed in disbelief, we’re in the back of the plane.

Everybody is looking at me like I’m a terrorist and I’m just like, “What the hell is going on?” I couldn’t imagine what I had done. I’m like, “Are you sure you guys have the right Christopher Wise?” They were like, “Yep, we got the right Christopher Wise.” The next thing I know, they are handing me off to the secret service. I’m like, “Tell me, what did I do?” I’m freaking out. This is only my girlfriend’s second time in the US, fortunately, she gets in, is able to go on to the place that we had stayed. But I’m just like, “Tell me what I did.” Finally, the secret service tells me what I’m being charged with. I’m being charged with conspiracy for bank fraud. That’s what it all comes back to me about what this could be about. This is 2012, 3 years before, back in 2009, I had hired a company to help me get a loan. Come to find out, they had done things fraudulently. Because I had hired them and followed their instructions, I got indicted. Because I was an expert in the industry and spoke about business funding around the country, actually around the world, they thought I should have known better.

The reality was I spent six months doing due diligence on this company and everything checked out to be legit. Here’s one piece of it that I will say that I did come to know about. I realized that as I was going through that process, there were things I learned that they were doing that were illegal. That is actually where there was some culpability on my part. However, at the time, I didn’t realize that what I was doing, that that was actually illegal, the knowledge that I had, and I still continued forward with the loan. The third reason that they really went hard on me was because I had spoken about this company from stage and actually referred them business. Because of that, I actually felt like they wanted to make an example out of me. Here I am, under arrest, finding myself in prison and I’m not able to get bail. I’m not able to get bail because I’ve been traveling internationally so they considered me at flight risk and I didn’t have any ties to Los Angeles. They made it very difficult for bail to happen. I also didn’t have the $100,000 to hire a real attorney to fight the case so I ended up going with a  public defender. I actually feel like if I had the money, I actually would’ve had a pretty good chance of winning it but I didn’t, so I went with a public defender. I find myself in prison in this entire new world, can’t get out, my life’s falling apart around me.

Prison is a hyper-masculine environment where the threat of violence is always present.

There’s all of this emotion that’s coming up as I feel just seeing what’s happening with my business and my relationship and all this emotion. Prison is a hyper-masculine environment where the threat of violence is always present, where it’s not okay to show vulnerability because that’s equated to weakness. If you come across as weak, then you can be taken advantage of. People put on these walls of toughness, they take on prison names, they group together by their race, they make up all sorts of crazy rules about how to interrelate with other races. None of this made sense to me. I  remember the very first day that I was in there, this guy comes up to me and goes, “What do you run?” I’m like, “What do you mean what do I run?” He goes, “What race are you?” I’m like, “Well, I’m part of the human race.” At the time, I didn’t really understand what he was asking me. He was trying to figure out what race I was because that’s how people group together by their race, and then later I realized on his arms he had tattooed ‘white power.’ To me I was like I’m a human being, you’re a human being. We’re both going through a difficult time and I’m going to treat you with kindness and respect. Because that’s how I viewed prison and I didn’t buy into the whole prison mentality, how I went through prison was very disruptive to the prison system.

There were certain people that ended up really hating me. I shall tell you about a story, I got beat up by a white supremacist there. There are people that ended up really hating me because I didn’t buy into the prison mentality and because I was nice and kind to the other races that were there. Prison is a hyper-masculine environment, the threat of violence is always there, and even though I had had a lot of krav maga and Taekwondo experience prior to going into prison, I made the conscious decision to not respond to violence with violence. One day I was meditating in my cell and I was thinking like, “What would I actually do if somebody tried to come up and fight me?” Before I tell you what came to me, I want to tell you about two years before this. Two years before this, I was working with my spiritual mentor. His primary teaching is whatever arises, love that. The way that one implements this practice is through your own inner child or your own heart space.

To visualize this, if you think about that five-year-old little boy or girl inside of you or your own innocence, that kind of special unique place inside of you, you can think of that as your inner child. To my own inner child, I say the words, “I love you. I love you. I love you.” I learned this two years before going into prison, and everyday I would do this practice to my inner child, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” I was actually prepared with all the right tools to really make the most out of this surprise prison experience. Actually, before I tell you what came to me as I was thinking about how to respond to violence, I’ll share with you another interesting thing. Around the same time as I was working with my spiritual mentor, he goes, “What’s your greatest fear?” I go, “Losing my business, being locked away in prison, losing my reputation, losing my friends, losing my relationship.” In essence, that’s what occurred. I faced my greatest fear. Sometimes when I mention that, some people think, “Oh well, you manifested that.” I don’t look at it that way. I actually believe in reincarnation and I actually believe that prior to incarnation, I actually helped create.

There are certain things in my life that I was destined to experience and I feel like this prison was one of those key experiences.

I created this mission, I accepted and chose this life mission and I feel like there are certain things in my life that I was destined to experience and I feel like this prison was one of those key experiences. I look at it not as something that I manifested, but as something that has been an essential key component of my spiritual evolution that was actually necessary for me to evolve in the quickest and most powerful way, not just only for myself but for all, for the evolution of the planet. Another little interesting side point is about six months prior to all this happening, I had this intuition, this desire came up. It was the desire to go away for six months to a year to meditate. Little did I realize that I was actually going to get that granted for a longer period of time in the most uncomfortable way. The unexpected benefit was the government was actually going to pay for my awakening process. Free room, board, food; the downside was I couldn’t leave.

Jumping back two years forward, here I am thinking about what would I do if somebody tried to fight me? What I thought was I wonder what would happen if I told somebody, “I love you.” I began to visualize that, somebody is trying to come up to me and fight me and I visualize telling them I love them. Well interestingly enough, I had the chance to find out. One day I’m in the lunchroom playing cards with this old man, something set him off. I might have beat him at a hand of cards, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but all of a sudden he stands up and he’s like, “Come on, let’s fight right now.” I stand up, I look him in the eyes and I go, “I love you.” All of a sudden, his composure breaks down, he looks lost, confused, he turns and walks away. It was the most incredible thing I had ever seen. After that, he actually kind of avoided me. It was almost like, “I don’t want anything to do with that I love you guy.” I had another experience running with violence. This one didn’t turn out the same way. I’m out interacting with other races, being nice, kind. We’re all people, we’re just human beings. There was this white supremacist that had come onto our unit and he hated me. I heard his conversations with the other whites and he was like, “I want to empower the whites and make us stronger.” It was all this rhetoric. I just didn’t buy into it. I didn’t fall under his influence like all the other whites did.

One day, he comes barging into my cell. I’m just sitting down, no words are spoken, he just barges in, comes straight up to me and slaps me as hard as he can across the face. This guy is like 6’2, 250 lbs, all tatted up, part of the Aryan brotherhood, been in prison for 12 years, just a hardcore guy. I get down in a meditative type of pose, I put my hands up and I go, “I don’t want to fight.” He goes, “Get up.” I go, “No.” The next thing I know, he’s jumping down on top of me with his hands around my throat choking me out. For a moment, I blackout. In that moment of blacking out, I actually have an out of body experience. I’m actually looking down seeing him over top of me choking me out. Now he backs off, I come back, and the next thing I know, he’s trying to come back down on top of me punching me. I had learned very good self-defense techniques. I put up my guard, he was trying to get in and he couldn’t get into my guard. He backs off. As soon as he had come into my cell, I immediately began doing I love you, saying I love you to my own heart. My voice told me, it said to say it loud enough so he can hear you and say it towards him. After he had backed off of me, I finally say it loud enough so he could hear me, and I go, “I love you.” He gets so mad, he picks up this little pastry that’s sitting on my bed and throws it at me. But for me, that was my defining moment in prison. That is where I responded to violence with love. That was my personal crucifixion, and I responded with love.

‏‏That’s amazing. That reminds me of a promatic run in I had with a neighbor who was making a lot of noise, being disruptive. My Kabbalah teacher, I spoke to him about the situation and he said, “You don’t meet darkness with more darkness.” Because I had been calling the cops on the guy and everything. I had not even thought about what was going on for this guy who was blasting loud music. It turned out that-I’ll share the findings in just a minute-but the idea is really powerful; you don’t meet darkness with more darkness, you meet it with light.

‏‏Yes.

‏‏That’s what my Kabbalah teacher told me. I meet it with light. What exactly am I supposed to do? Pray for him, and I did. I would never see this guy, and then I saw him in the elevator which was unusual. Normally, what I would’ve done is I would have gotten out of the elevator and walked the rest of the way up the stairs. I invited him in and I talked to him and I turned to him and I told him, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I called the cops on you.” That’s when he told me that he had severe PTSD and someone tried to kill him 4 years ago. He was having an anxiety attack and that’s how he handles it. He turns the music really loud. All I was thinking about was myself. Okay, well, you know, here’s the guy going off with this crazy loud music and it’s really disruptive, I’m trying to do a podcast interview or whatever. It hadn’t even dawned on me to think about what was going on for him, why he would do that. That’s what the situation was and I was completely clueless to that until he told me in the elevator. That just shifted the whole relationship with the neighbor and it all started because of meeting darkness with light.

‏‏I love it, I love it.

‏‏Beautiful lesson for me, and your story reminds me of that.

‏‏In this experience that I’m having with this white supremacist, there was actually a download that I got from what I see as pure source, like God. Before I go into that, I wanted to give you a little back story. After he backs off of me, we actually start talking. In prison, it’s violence first and then we talk. It’s so crazy, in prison everything is backwards. It’s the most illogical, doesn’t make sense environment, it’s crazy. Take action and then talk, then we started talking. I’m like, “I don’t want to be a part of a group that treats its members this way.” He’s just going on, just all this stuff, and I’m just like, “Look, I don’t want to be a part of a group that treats its members this way.” He ends up kicking me out of the whites and turns all the other whites against me, which basically meant they alienated me and ignored me, which that actually is extremely painful. What was interesting from that, even after all that happened, a few of the whites came up to me and they said, “Man, I really respect what you did. I wish I could do the same thing but hey, if it comes down to it, I’m white.” It was just still quite an interesting thing which meant I was now independent, and that actually brought up even more fears around what could happen.

The very fact that I’m alive, life is a gift.

Nothing actually did really happen after that, but it was still just more fear came up for me to just more deeply love this one, my inner child. I’ll talk a little bit more about that. After this, I’m just sitting on my bed and I’m meditating. I have this direct experience with God, and I see these clouds billowing up. I see light shooting up through the clouds and I feel this infinite power and wisdom, so immense. If you were standing, it will just make you drop to your knees in awe. In this moment, this fraction of a second, I get this download. This download felt like it was 1/1000 of what was available to me in that space. This download contained three essential elements. The first is that life is a gift. The very fact that I’m alive, life is a gift. The second is I can’t be destroyed. It was so amazing to feel what it was like to be outside of my body and the consciousness that was present. It was like this physical body may die, the consciousness that enlivens this body in the awareness that I have will live. I can not be destroyed.

The third thing was I will follow my heart no matter what, even until death. To feel that, and if you listen to those words and you feel the energy of what’s contained in those words, those are lessons that you can actually take on and embrace without having to go through the same things that I did. There’s actually in what I’m sharing with you as you’re really listening, you will feel that there’s things that open up inside of you. You will feel that there’s things that expand, of course, if you’re open and ready. Those three key elements were just such an amazing gift from that experience.

‏‏Amazing. When this experienced happened, how many more months did you have where you were alienated from the group that you were in and you were basically independent?

I realized how I had created such an amazing life, but that amazing life was also distracting me and keeping me from fully stepping into who I am.

‏‏I think it was about six months. It wasn’t a short amount of time and there was a lot of fear. I actually got paranoid at times. I never really talked to that white supremacist guy again, he kind of stayed away from me. I would see him talking with somebody else that I just talked to. I was like oh my god, is he planning to beat me up? There was a constant fear that I was just going to get beat up. Almost constant, not all the time, but it was enough to where there was a lot of fear. So much emotion came up for me throughout this time; fear, loneliness, sadness, boredom. I felt like I sat though maybe hundreds or maybe thousands of hours of boredom. I sat and felt through a lifetime of unfelt sadness. I remember at one point, I stepped into what felt like an ocean of sadness. Throughout each of these different experiences, I just so deeply loved my own heart, my own inner child. When I say my heart, I’m talking about my inner child, my heart space. I wasn’t able to do that at first. This was actually one of the ways in which I found freedom in prison. When I first came into prison, all these emotions came up. It was just so much and so massive. I wasn’t able to fully process it all. Two to four hours a day, I would just sit in my cell and meditate and love my heart space, love my inner child. What that allowed me to do is to begin to feel safe in my body. I also had the time, right? I didn’t have all the stimulations of life that was going on because I realized how I had created such an amazing life, but that amazing life was also distracting me, keeping me from fully stepping into who I am, and from fully realizing who I really am.

‏‏Because you are not your body and a lot of people don’t have that distinction, and that’s kind of terrifying to think that you are your body. To believe that, because that means that you will cease to exist when your body breaks down when you die.

‏‏I’m in a body, but I am the consciousness that enlivens this body. Outside of prison, I have such a great life. Whenever I was uncomfortable, emotions came up. I was easily able to do something else. And also in personal development, I’ve done a ton of personal development stuff. In personal development, one of the things I really learned was about state changing. If you’re feeling sad or unpowerful, state change so you can shift, you can step into a more powerful state, you can pursue your goals and dreams and your accomplishments and take over the world.

‏‏Right, make your move.

‏‏From one perspective, that’s a wonderful thing, to feel like you’re in control of your emotions, and to feel like if you’re not feeling good, you can shift to feel good so that you can go out and accomplish and create. Here’s what I realized, here’s the fundamental flaw that I realized in that whole personal development methodology, is that tactic was keeping me from feeling the emotions that were coming up to be felt. Sadness, loneliness, boredom, fear. Because of that idea that I had around if I wasn’t feeling good, to state change, and because I had an amazing life that I had created to keep me distracted, I had a lifetime of unfelt emotions. The gift of prison was the time away from life where it was so boring, I was bored out of my mind and I had the time to just sit and so deeply love my inner child to where I began to feel safe in my body so that I could fully feel all of these emotions that I had never felt. It was my circumstances, it was the gift of my circumstances that was causing these emotions to arise to be loved and felt, but I had to so deeply love and accept this one to feel safe for my body to fully feel and process all of these different emotions that were coming up.

‏‏So many of us run from uncomfortable emotions rather than just letting it wash over us and accept it and then move on.

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏I did that for a long time. To suppress or resist. What you resist persists, right? If you’re unwilling to feel the uncomfortable emotions that come with some action that you took, some behavior, some circumstance that you created, it’s just running from something that is not going to let you go.

‏‏The freedom that was discovered was now I’m no longer afraid to feel whatever is coming up. It’s like I’m fully free to feel loneliness, fear, sadness, boredom, upset, right? It’s like I made friends, I made friends with these different emotions.

‏‏ It reminds me of a time when I was in India, I went to Oneness University with my fiance and we learned from the Oneness monks to let the emotions come and just feel them. Let the tiger devour you, the way they described it.

There’s something very powerful when you’re able to surrender into life.

‏‏When all this happened, my first night in prison, I had this intuition come to me. It told me to completely surrender into this process. What made it easy to completely surrender into the process was I actually didn’t have the money to fight the case. I feel like not having the money was a very essential part of being able to surrender into this. What I see is so interesting about this experience of my own spiritual evolution was I was brought up a very strong-willed child. I never submitted to my parents. I remember at the age of 14, I told my parents, “I’m going to do what I want, you can try to tell me what to do but I’m going to still do what I want anyway. Why don’t you just make it easier on yourself and just let me do what I want?” It was a constant battle with my parents. Most people learn how to submit their will through growing up, through their parental structures, but I never submitted my will. I never learned how to submit my personal will. I feel like there’s something very powerful when you’re able to surrender into life. Letting the tiger devour you I see is very similar to surrendering into life and into love.

What has actually opened up for me on the other side now would have never occurred unless I had an experience that was strong enough, the force was enough to just make me like, “I just can’t fight this. This is too much.” It was the weight of the US government. They’re powerful, it’s great to be on the one side. I love being a US citizen, I’m very happy about that, there’s lots of freedom and benefits that come with that and it’s great to be on the positive side. But if you’re on the other side where you get to be like they’re going after you-to be honest, I felt like I was, in many ways, treated unfairly in what actually came about. What I realized is that life is far too perfect to be fair, but it took something like this. For me to break down this personal will, this ego structure, so deeply be willing to surrender into life, into love, so that something so much more amazing could open up from that.

‏‏You say life is too perfect to be fair, expand on that a bit.

‏‏I don’t feel that what happened to me was fair, that I was treated fairly. I feel like this was essential. This was life’s perfect, immaculate plan for the highest evolution of my soul.

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏Not just for me, but for the transformation of anything that will occur from this. I know that how I went through prison was impactful to the people there, transformed the prison system. What will actually come from this, I feel like will be so amazingly impactful. Another way to say it is it’s okay that I’m not treated fairly.

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏That was a huge lesson and breakthrough. Before, I was like, “I’m not being treated fairly, that’s not okay. I’m going to fight it.” Of course I’m not saying don’t stand up for and do what you can for what’s best for you. You also really got to feel into how much of that is actually a fight because you’re fighting against what you feel is unfair and so there’s great power. I discovered great power in realizing that it’s okay if I’m not treated fairly.

I discovered great power in realizing that it’s okay if I’m not treated fairly. Click To Tweet

‏‏Yeah because it goes with expectation. If I have an expectation to get a certain outcome or to be treated in a certain way, and that outcome doesn’t happen, then I’ve just set myself up for disappointment instead of being in a place of abundance and appreciation that every moment is a gift, that I’m alive, and that there’s a bigger purpose here, there is a bigger picture here that I’m not able to see.

‏‏It’s an opportunity to step into a deeper level of faith and trust when you’re encountering a situation where you don’t feel like you’re being treated fairly and perhaps you’re not even in control to shift the situation. I was not in control, I was completely out of control. That was an opportunity for me to surrender into and deeply trust. I can feel it. My intuition was so deeply talking to me and guiding me through this whole process. I knew it. Crazy enough, there was almost a celebration on one level when I realized I was in prison. I knew, this is what I have been waiting for. This is what’s going to give me my freedom. There were certain points when I remember that and realize that, although that quickly went away because it was just so painful. There was a recognition and my intuition gave me those insights to really realize what was occurring, it helped even though I couldn’t see it or understand perhaps why it was for my greatest good, to just know that it was.

‏‏You said that your parents didn’t really give you boundaries or didn’t maintain their own boundaries so that you just did your own thing and you were able to call the shots without any real repercussions and that really set you up for an unrealistic life until prison happened.

‏‏Let me clarify that, they did, they did not back down.

‏‏Okay.

‏‏It was a constant battle.

‏‏Alright.

‏‏It as a battle until I was 17, they finally started basically letting me do what I want when I turned 17. But for three or four years, it was an all-out war.

‏‏Gotcha. How did that set you up, that all out war, the butting of heads every moment, how did that set you up for pain and failure in your life until you got this new realization?

I had to be in control because I had to control the chess pieces of life.

‏‏I’ll even create a greater context around the question that you’re asking. I’ve always been very strong-willed, I was the first-born child, very driven. Always like how do I get what I want? I got into entrepreneurship at the age of 12. My whole life was about accomplishment. In fact, that was enforced when I felt love from my parents, I felt more love from my parents when I achieved and got good grades and did things successfully in whatever I was doing. The way that I learned to get happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment was through accomplishment. My self-worth, validation, all these different things was rooted in what I accomplished, I was very driven. It was that drive from lack of not having those things to create success in business and with women, and whatever else I saw into my life, to create those things so that I could feel fulfilled and satisfied and happy. Because of that, I had to be in control because I had to control the chess pieces of life, I had to make sure that I got this client or when I went to this networking event, I had to meet X number of people so I can get X number of new clients. I interrelated with people in the world from a very objectified and strategic place where everything was seen as how can it serve me?

Of course, I had learned all the stuff of to get what you want, you got to give to others. It wasn’t like I wasn’t creating value, the point is I tried to control everything in my life to create the outcomes that I wanted because it was the having the outcomes and the circumstances that I wanted that gave me the happiness and satisfaction. What happened in prison is that slate, all of that was wiped, the whole slate was wiped because I was in a situation where I was completely out of control. I saw my business falling apart. Fortunately, I was able to sell my business. My relationship, that was one of the most painful losses, losing my relationship in prison. The freedom, just seeing my whole life just fall apart as I was going through and facing my greatest fear. Because there was such a deep surrender into life and love through this process, coming out on the other side, now it was like I’m relearning how to live life. I’m still in this process but I’ll share with you what really has opened up and is occurring from this.

‏‏Please.

‏‏One, I have become my own source of happiness and satisfaction. That has occurred through me so deeply loving my inner child and through the practice of saying, “I love you.” If there was one thing that I would like to give everyone in this that you remember, if there was that you would walk away from this conversation with, it would be to create a daily practice of loving your own heartspace or loving your inner child. Even if you just took one minute a day, I recommend doing it for five minutes if you can, but minimum one minute a day, just beginning the practice of saying the words, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”  Through that way, what will open up for you is you’ll begin to feel safer in your body, you can be feel safer to feel emotions, negative emotions that are coming up. If you continue on that journey, a switch will occur, the polarity will shift into your life where you actually end up becoming the source of your own happiness and satisfaction.

The reason that is so powerful is because now, I am creating life from a place where I don’t have to be in control of outcomes and circumstances. So that when things don’t go my way, it’s okay. It used to not be that way, me not getting my way was the worst thing ever. Now, if things don’t go my way, it’s okay. I love my inner child through that, and I look to see what will open up instead. It feels so good, it feels so free to live life from such a depth of surrender. Let me add this, there’s this depth of surrender that’s occurred. From this depth of surrender, my masculine presence and purpose arises and moves forward. That masculine presence and purpose of what I’m actually here to do and accomplish on this planet is done from a place where I don’t have to control what the outcomes are. Yes, there’s still a vision of what I want to see accomplished and fulfilled, but if things don’t work out the way that I envision them to or think they will, it’s okay. It feels so good to create from this place of already being satisfied and fulfilled, not needing to control and whatever happens is for my highest good.

I am creating life from a place where I don’t have to be in control of outcomes and circumstances.

‏‏Yeah, because the neediness is the opposite of masculine presence. If you give that up, the neediness, the need, the craving for control, you surrender. Now, you tap into a whole new level of masculinity.

‏‏There’s an integration. I feel like there’s such a deep integration that’s occurred with masculine and feminine energies within my body because I went from two extremes. Prior to prison, I was all masculine, no surrender. After prison, it was kind of like in true prison it was all surrender, all feminine energies and then earlier this year, second, third quarter, a very deep integration began occurring around both the masculine and feminine energies.

‏‏Tell me more about that, what’s the benefit of integrating the two for you?

‏‏It wasn’t even something that I consciously did, it was just something that was occurring as part of my spiritual evolution. This makes me think of another really powerful personal development thing. My whole life, it’s always been like okay, I have this personal development work list. These are the areas I need to work on myself, I have to read this book, do this workshop, and do this so I can fix these things, so I can be better, and so I can go out and accomplish more, achieve more, and be a better person and serve the world and do all this stuff. There was a lot of management, there was another way I was trying to control my own growth. In prison, this idea came to me. It was like just completely let go of trying to be in control of your own evolution.

Trust that the universe actually knows better what your own spiritual evolutionary path looks like. I let go of trying to manage and control my own personal development and things. There’s still stuff that will come across my path and I’m like I wanna do this. A couple of months ago I did this intimacy practice event. It was an awesome, amazing event but it wasn’t something I had on my list, like oh let me learn to have better intimacy. Now, it’s a much more organic way in which my evolution is occurring. This whole integration of the masculine and feminine just came about because I realized as I was living from such a feminine place, and really my first year out of prison, I really didn’t accomplish much because I was under this idea from a very surrender to feminine perspective, it’s like the universe is just going to bring to me what I need. The reality is that sure, some stuff can happen that way, but not much happened. I learned that one.

Sometimes you have your spiritual friend, and just like, “I’m just going to manifest this because law of attraction, blah blah blah, I’m gonna think positive thoughts.” You’re like, okay what happened? Nothing, you got to take action, right? My whole life, I had always taken action, I’ve always been so driven. Actually, I was kind of interested, from one perspective, I was like, “Let me actually explore what it looks like to be so surrendered into life, so surrendered into the feminine.” I’m kind of like, “Okay life, I’m open to receive whatever you want to give me,” oh, not much has happened, but that wasn’t wasted time because I actually learned that I really deeply settled into the feminine, integrated feminine and very surrendered energies during that time. That then after, I kind of look back over that year and I was like, “You know what, I think I actually need to bring some more masculine energy forward.” Then I started kind of like okay, bringing a forward purpose action, started having some coaches come into my life to help me really get back on track with taking purposeful action, and it was just a period of about six months that that integration occurred.

‏‏You took krav maga classes or training at some point, do you feel like that had a critical part to play in forming your masculine core, or where do you think krav maga came in?

It just feels good to know how to defend myself and the presence that I stand in isn’t from a place of weakness.

‏‏Yeah, I love krav maga. Anybody interested in doing any kind of martial arts, or any kind of self-defense, I think that’s the best. That’s just hardcore, right to the point. Somebody’s coming up to you, you’re just going to take them out. It’s an awesome feeling as a masculine being to know, to have the confidence that if it did come down, you know how to defend yourself. I actually believe, after I got beat up by that white supremacist, a message came to me, it said you’re never going to face that level of physical violence again. That’s awesome to know, I also think that it just feels good to know how to defend myself and the presence that I stand in isn’t from a place of weakness. For me knowing that and having that confidence is very important, and I actually think that I’m never going to have to use that, but it still just feels very good to have that skill and have that level of confidence.

‏‏Yeah, I’ve taken krav maga classes myself. I’m only very much a beginner. I’ve signed up with krav maga worldwide here in L.A. It’s very good.

‏‏Yeah, it’s awesome. Somebody come on, you punch them in the balls, pouch their eyes out, fight them. Whatever it takes, that’s what I love about krav maga, it’s straight to the point.

‏‏Yeah. What if you hadn’t had that krav maga training and you were in prison, do you think you would have made it out alive? What do you think would have happened then?

‏‏When I chose to do krav maga, I had this intuition that came to me. Never in my whole life have I ever had my ass kicked. This was back in 2008 I think that I had this, I was like, “Man I wanna get beat up, I wanna know what that’s like.” I was like let me go to krav maga and get into the situation. In krav maga, I actually got beat up, it was just so hard. You’re going to the training, it’s all out, you’re cradling, you get beat up and bruised. After about a year of doing krav maga, I feel like I know what that’s like. I actually feel like that intuition or that desire actually prepared me to be able to make that decision that I wasn’t gonna respond to violence with violence from a place of power as opposed to a place of weakness.

‏‏Yeah, that’s great. That’s powerful, very powerful. Another thing when you’re talking about masculine and feminine and the integration of the two, I thought about how you told that guy, “I love you.” It’s very manly to say, “Hey, I love you man,” or, “I love you bro,” but it’s a different thing to actually just say, “I love you.”

‏‏Yup

‏‏Were you tempted to say I love you, man instead because it would be safer and you wouldn’t get looked at so strangely? I’m just curious.

‏‏No, because it wasn’t that energy. I would not want to say to him I love you, man cause I don’t love him like that. Feel the energies. “I love you, man.” That’s actually like you wanting to say I love you to a friend. This guy was not a friend, this guy just kicked my ass. I do not want to be his friend, right?

‏‏Yeah.

‏‏It’s the response. It wasn’t said weakly, it wasn’t like “I love you,” it was said “I LOVE YOU.”

‏‏Yeah, amazing. You’re on this incredible journey. How are you putting all this love into action these days?

I wasn’t gonna respond to violence with violence from a place of power as opposed to a place of weakness.

‏‏What I’m doing now as a business, I’m a business consultant. I have these three different companies I’m running. Fortunately, I was able to sell my business at the beginning of 2014 when I couldn’t run it when I was in prison. What I’ve always naturally done is just known how to grow companies. I’m actually a scaling consultant and I work with conscious leaders who are looking to scale companies. I have a particular niche in working with virtual companies or companies where people work from home or work remotely or they have a distributed workforce. My interest is actually in working with conscious leaders. To me, what that means is people or business leaders who get that there’s a larger and more fulfilling way in which to grow a business beyond just the sole purpose of being about profit. Profit still, I believe, needs to be the number one focus. You got to be profitable to grow a company.

But within that profitability, it’s like, “Hey, how are we treating our employees, how are we treating our customers, how are we treating our vendors, how are we treating the community that we’re directly associated with, and how is our business impacting society as a whole?” A conscious leader takes into account all of these different things as they are formulating and creating a profit. One is known through an organization called Conscious Capitalism. This framework, I actually see as being founded and rooted in love. Love looks at the whole. Love looks at the totality. I want to also expand to a conversation of actually what love is in the context of business because now I’m all about putting love into action in a business context.

‏‏Okay.

‏‏A lot of people have an idea that love is this soft, fluffy thing, maybe it just occurs between lovers or it’s something that you say to somebody that you feel love for. I would actually like to suggest to you that love is running a profitable business, love is treating your employees well, love encompasses being successful. As a business owner, when you begin to actually see that doing and how you’re growing your business, encompassing the totality of all the parts of what your business touches, that’s actually love in action, that you’re actually being a loving leader by growing your business through these ideas. That actually deepens somebody’s own relationship with love and how that’s viewed within business. Within that context, when I’m working with companies, there are eight building blocks that I look at when I’m scaling a company.

One is how their teams are structured. Two is their actual cash management plan, their revenue, their profitability goals. The third is how they’re actually executing inside their organization and how well that’s occurring. Fourth is their actual growth methodology, how they’re doing quarterly strategic meetings, how they’re setting goals and objectives and how does that tie in with the bigger picture. That’s four, there’s actually eight total, but I look at these high-level building blocks and I help the company prioritize what should we be focusing on first, and then second, and then third, to in the most efficient way grow and scale this business. One of the things that actually comes up as this is occurring, this is why I like working with conscious leaders, is that inevitably, always in some way, at some point, the focus comes back to how deeply is this business leader loving themselves. One of the things I love is in that these conscious leaders are open to the conversation is how can they deepen their own relationship with love through deeply loving their inner child. Because as they begin to deepen their own relationship with love and inner child, how they’re actually growing their business just gets amplified and superfied, and they actually feel more fulfilled, they feel more passionate. Ultimately, they end up growing a more successful company.

‏‏Yeah. I believe that, I believe that. How will somebody work with you if they’re interested in growing their business in that kind of heartfelt way?

‏‏I look to work with companies that are doing at least $1 million in revenue and who are wanting to scale beyond $10  million. I do have a few clients that are under a million, but you know, generally speaking, a million and above. Just a way to get to know me and how I work, I have these complimentary strategy session that I offer and we’ll sit down for an hour or more and I’ll really get an understanding of your business and I’ll really give you some great advice. There’s a little questionnaire that I have you fill out so I can get an understanding of your business and I just give you some great guidance on that call and what I’m seeing. If that complimentary strategy session is something that you might be interested in, you can just email me. Email me at chris@chriswise.com and just put strategy session in the subject line and just say, “Hey, I heard you on the podcast and I’m interested in the complimentary strategy session.”

‏‏Awesome. Listeners, do take Chris up on that offer. It’s a great opportunity for you.

‏‏The next action for your listeners is to incorporate a daily practice of loving your inner child for at least a minute a day. Try it for at least a week and see how it goes. Ideally, it will become a lifetime practice.

‏‏Let me add something on that because you might do it and you might not feel anything. Sometimes, people do it and they feel great but a lot of times your subconscious isn’t even familiar with it and it may feel uncomfortable, you may have resistance to it or you may do it and not feel anything and that’s okay, it’s just because your subconscious isn’t used to receiving love that way. The key is to stick with it. Over time, you actually begin to reprogram your subconscious where you actually become the source of your own love and satisfaction but that’s not gonna happen in a day, it’s not gonna happen in seven days, it’s not gonna happen in a month, it takes time, but it is the path. If you’re interested in becoming free, it is the fastest and most direct path that I’ve discovered.

‏‏That sounds amazing. I do hope that my listeners will take you up on that, and also take you upon on the strategy session too. Well, thank you, Chris, and thank you, listeners. I hope this was an episode that touched your heart, it certainly touched mine. This is Stephan Spencer signing off, we’ll catch you on the next episode of Get Yourself Optimized.

Important Links

• Chris Wise
• LinkedIn – Chris Wise
• Facebook – Chris Wise
• chris@chriswise.com
• Brian Tracy
• Zig Ziglar
• Bob Proctor
• Krav Maga

About Chris Wise

Chris is inspired to create the fullest experience of freedom in life possible. “I didn’t want a boss to tell me what to do, I didn’t want a business that kept me in the office or tied to one physical location. So I created a life that allows for my greatest self-expression and experience of freedom.”

At the age of 12, Chris started his first business sharpening chainsaw chains. At 16 he founded his first technology company Wise Enterprises. Chris dropped out of college and left behind a full scholarship, to pursue the expansion of this company. It paid off, as the growth of this company created him a millionaire for the first time at the age of 21. “College isn’t for everyone and definitely not necessary for success.”

Chris Wise has been influenced and mentored by some of the top minds in the world including Tony Robbins, Steven Covey and Michael Gerber. He has co-authored three books and a movie with key business and personal development leaders Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, and Bob Proctor.

Disclaimer: The medical, fitness, psychological, mindset, lifestyle, and nutritional information provided on this website and through any materials, downloads, videos, webinars, podcasts, or emails is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical/fitness/nutritional advice, diagnoses, or treatment. Always seek the help of your physician, psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, certified trainer, or dietitian with any questions regarding starting any new programs or treatments, or stopping any current programs or treatments. This website is for information purposes only, and the creators and editors, including Stephan Spencer, accept no liability for any injury or illness arising out of the use of the material contained herein, and make no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the contents of this website and affiliated materials.