From Baseball to Business and a Purpose Driven Life | Chris Mader

Matt Edmundson [0:14 - 2:48]: Well, hello and welcome back to Push to Be More. My name is Matt Edmundson and we're gonna jump into another exploration of what fuels this thing called life. Yes, we are. Today I am chatting with Chris Mader from MTA Consulting. We're gon diving into his unique life experiences, the hurdles he has had to push through, what he does to recharge his batteries, and the steps he's taking to be more. In other words, we're going to be looking at Push to be and more. Yes. Now, don't forget, you can find all the detailed show notes and the complete transcript of our conversation on the website at pushtobemore.com so if you can't take notes, don't panic. We've got them for you. They're all there. You can go get them for free. Yes, you can. But if you're like me, you're an avid note taker, join in as well, because I have a book just full of notes from guests, which is amazing, and I dare say Chris is going to bring some today as well. Now, let me take a brief second to thank Podjunction, the company that makes this show possible, headed up by the wonderful Sadaf Baynon, who has also started up hosting some of these podcasts and doing some of the interviews, which is fab, means we can get more out there. But if you want to understand how podcasting can help your business grow like it's helped mine grow in insane ways, then go have a conversation with Sadaf. She would love to have a conversation with you. This is an unbelievable networking tool, podcasting. It really does open doors like nothing I've ever seen. And I get to have great conversations with great people like Chris, who probably being realistic, would never have met had we not have got the podcast. And so it's just a wonderful thing. Go check it out at podjunction.com. go talk Sadaf. Tell her I said how's it? And she will help you as much as she can. Now let's talk about Chris, the founder and CEO of MTA Consulting, with 27 years of experience coaching leaders, consulting and developing talent from entry level roles to the C Suite. A former professional athlete, which is not something we can all say. Let's be real. Chris combines insights from elite sports and business to help individuals and leaders. Leaders achieve greatness. Based off the beautiful south coast of Massachusetts, he enjoys family time, beach days, because why would you not golf? Okay, playing the guitar with you on that one, Chris. When he's not inspiring the next generation of leaders, that's what you'll find him doing. Chris, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing? I'm great.

Chris Mader [2:48 - 2:51]: It's really great to be here and I'm looking forward to the conversation today.

Matt Edmundson [2:51 - 3:44]: Matt, that's great. And also should probably give a quick shout out to Neil Roberts, who's been on the show recently. He introduced us, he said, matt, you really need to speak to this guy. He's an absolute legend. So, yeah, very nice. I'm looking forward to it myself. So, Chris, let's get started. Let's start with my. My favourite question that I like to ask everybody. And it's the. To be fair, if you're listening to the show, we ask this question at the start of every conversation. It's the only question I've told you that I'm going to ask. Right. And so it's great because when people come onto the show, if they, you know, if they. I mean, you've done podcasts, but not everybody has. And I think knowing the first question just puts everybody at ease really a little bit and it just starts the conversation going. So let's do it. Chris, if you had your own podcast and you could interview anybody on your podcast, someone that's had a big influence on your life, past or present, who would you interview and why?

Chris Mader [3:45 - 4:07]: So it is a great question and it required some thought because there were many names that came up and if you would ask me on the spot, I would have given you four or five and you would have pinned me down for one. So the one person that. And eventually I do want to start doing podcasts to support my business and like you said, Matt, expand the network. But it would have to be my first manager in business. His name is Bob Dickey.

Matt Edmundson [4:07 - 4:08]: Okay.

Chris Mader [4:08 - 4:27]: And so I'll tell you why, Bob. Bob is a blue collar guy from New England and he actually went to college at San Diego State, came back home, built his family and started his career in sales. And he was an individual contributor for about five years. Selling. I mean, I'm going to date us here. Back in the 90s, fax machines and copy machines.

Matt Edmundson [4:27 - 4:29]: Oh, wow. I had one. I had one.

Chris Mader [4:29 - 4:49]: Yeah. You know, back in the 90s, we all did. And so he happened upon a company that did IT consulting and staffing, and he was selling copiers to them and ended up working there because there was so much energy in the building. So after three years of selling, he got promoted to be a manager and. And I backfilled his seat as a salesperson. I was the first person he ever hired.

Matt Edmundson [4:49 - 4:49]: Wow.

Chris Mader [4:49 - 5:57]: As A. As a manager, Bob went on every three years to earn a promotion from branch manager to regional regional VP, VP to President, President, CEO. Ended up running a $1.4 billion company. You know, coming from this little brick building that looked like a bomb shelter back in Hoover, Massachusetts, back in the 90s. So Bob taught me. I mean, he taught me everything about sales. He taught me so much about leadership and managing. He had that tough love. He was tough on me, but I knew it was coming from a good place. And so I just entrusted my career to Bob for 20 years. I worked for 20 years. I then moved on to a new opportunity in a new industry, in healthcare. And then a year later, he was looking for work, and we needed a president. So I told the founder of the company, Joe. I'm like, joe, you gotta hire Bob. This guy's the best I've ever worked for. Bob Start, he jumped into that company, helped it grow from 175 million to 500 million. So, you know, he's touched two. He's touched two big companies in his career that turned to gold. But I. I credit so much of it's his work ethic, his discipline, his coaching style. There's just so many things I could.

Matt Edmundson [5:57 - 6:00]: Say about Bob Dickey.

Chris Mader [6:01 - 6:25]: So I gotta get him. If you can get him. If you can get him, get him. But, you know, I hope I. I know him well enough that I think maybe he would consider doing a podcast with me, because he's very. He's one of those, like, really private guys. Like, he's hard to get to know, you know, and so I've seen behind the curtain of how Bob thinks about things, and we were obviously good friends, and he's always been a good. He's always been a great mentor to me.

Matt Edmundson [6:25 - 7:03]: That's fantastic. You know what, Chris? I. One, I love the story. Thank you for sharing. And two, I. Every time I ask this question, I'm always intrigued by the answers that people give, because obviously these people like Bob means a lot to you, right? He's very well connected to you. And people give answers which are usually very meaningful, which is wonderful. Not many people have given answers where it's like a direct mentor like that. This guy's had such a big impact on your life for such a long period of time. And I love the fact that, you know, when you went and worked in a different company like Bob, you need to come work in this company as well.

Chris Mader [7:03 - 7:12]: Is to say, everything he told me about sales, I used on him to sell him on coming to work. With us, you know, it's like a Jedi mind trick.

Matt Edmundson [7:12 - 8:36]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I remember the first, really the only boss I've ever had because I've worked for myself most of my life. But there's. He's also been on the show, actually, the guy called Simon. Still very good friends. He moved out to New Zealand, sold the business and moved to New Zealand. Great guy, but a really fascinating salesperson. Right. Not your archetypical, kind of Zig Ziglar. And I love the Zig Ziglar approach, I really do. I learned a lot from him. But this guy is just unusual. An unusual personality, looks, the way he carries himself, everything was quite unusual. He had this trick though, Chris, that I picked up quite early on. I started working for him just outside, just about a year or so after I graduated university. And we were selling saunas and I watched him and whenever he was in the room, he would talk slowly like this, and everybody would be sort of waiting, you know, for the next word to come out of his mouth. But he would do this thing where he would just slowly nod his head like this. And what you found yourself doing as you were, you sort of, you drawn into the way he spoke, you would find yourself nodding along. It was a really interesting thing that I noticed quite early on. I'm like, what? I've started doing it myself. It's, it's really fascinating, just these little things that you pick up from your mentors, isn't it?

Chris Mader [8:37 - 8:48]: It is. No, it really is. Like you said, I, I, and I, you know, I just wrote a book that came out two weeks ago, about three weeks ago. Congratulations. Thank you. It was a 14 month journey. It's something I've always wanted to do.

Matt Edmundson [8:48 - 8:48]: Yeah.

Chris Mader [8:48 - 9:05]: And of course Bob, he didn't want to be directly quoted in the book because that's Bob, he doesn't want to be interviewed. However, he's like, Chris, everything I taught you put in the book, it's fine. Just make sure you reference me and footnote me. I'm like, no problem, Bob. So, you know, he, he just taught me so much about so many things.

Matt Edmundson [9:06 - 9:23]: Yeah, yeah. No, excellent. So tell me about the book. For, I mean, we all, anybody that's been in business for a while has this mad idea one day that they're going to write a book. Very few people actually do it. So you've managed to do it and launched it a few weeks ago. What made you decide to do that?

Chris Mader [9:24 - 13:37]: Lots of things. Back in 2013, I found this deep passion for coaching. I grew up in business and leadership and sports. But I always was fascinated by coaching. I mean, Bob was a coach for me. My college baseball coach is very meaningful. I'll talk about him in a second. And my company, Ronstadt at the time, moved me off of a leadership role, or I should say off of a leadership sales role, into a leadership people development role in HR and human resources. And, you know, the CEO came to me and said, chris, you know, you. You always seem to have highly engaged teams. You have all. All these people going to president's club. You have the lowest voluntary attrition, like, what's your secret? And of course, you know, the secret for me was, well, my parents raised me right. I treat people the right way. I asked them about their goals. I don't talk about my goals, I talk about their goals and connect them to the company's vision and all the things that good leaders try to do. And so that's when I thought a lot about my college baseball coach and the lessons he taught me. Like, man, I want to incorporate these into the business and the training. And I'm like, I'm going to start to write a book. Well, you know, of course, I'm working 50 hours a week, I'm travelling the world. I mean, I was going to Europe and Singapore, everywhere, and never made the time, never found the time. Excuse, excuse, excuse. And so after about 11 years, a year and a half ago, I had a small equity event in my last company. I was a chief revenue officer and I had a cheque, I had some cash and they no longer needed me and I was on my own. And so I had a decision to either start my own business or stay in corporate America, if you will, and I started my own business. And as soon as I decided to start my own business, I was going to write a book. So I started writing. And upon starting to write, I vetted publishers and I went with a hybrid publishing company called Manuscripts, based in Washington, dc. Yeah, and they help. They help authors like myself, independent people trying to connect the dots to editing, revisions, artwork, marketing, the relationships with Amazon and Barnes and Noble and all the relationships you have, they do everything for you. Obviously, it costs a little bit more than just straight self publishing, but I just started writing now. I thought I was gonna. I thought I was gonna write a leadership book. I mean, I. I've been wanting to write a leadership coaching book for years, but because I just really kind of lost my job, if you will. I was no longer needed in a company. I was tired of other people owning my outcomes And I'm like, you know, this is an opportunity for me to write about my mindset. And so I started to write a lot about my mindset. And then I started to think about all the athletes I played with previously. Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan, Derek Jeter. What was their mindset? Right. I played for World Series manager Terry Francona. And so when I had to come up with a company name for my business, I knew coaching was going to be a lot about behaviour and skills change. And all I kept thinking about was my college baseball coach, Boyd Coffey. And so you can see me on the screen, he had a giant wooden sign over his desk that said, son, make the adjustment. He was a good old boy from Athens, Tennessee, served Army infantry, played for the Yankees and played college and professional baseball. And he was my coach. He was at Rollins for 25 years. I was with him for four. But when I asked Boyd what does, you know, make the adjustment mean, what I learned was, you're the one that has to make the change. So when I was struggling my studies as a freshman in college, he's like, chris, or you gotta make the adjustment with your studies. Gotta. You gotta start partying less and studying more. And he was right. I was partying too much. I wasn't, you know, so. And then as I accelerated my life and went to, you know, an in seed programme in Amsterdam, I start to learn about emotional intelligence. And I'm like, oh, my God. Boyd was light years ahead in the areas of self awareness, self control. And I'm like, wow. And so my company is named MTA Consultancy with a tagline to make the Adjustment. And we want to create better leaders and sales professionals in this world. That's our mission. And so it was born a lot from Boyd. It was born a lot from what I learned from him and how he impacted the 300 guys that played for Rollins College. And I'm like, wow. I have a. I have a very unique opportunity to bring his message to the greater masses through mostly business. I mean, I. I worked with a couple of sports teams, but most of what I do is really working with businesses. 10 to $100 million or so, plus. So it's, it's really. It's a gift. He gave me a gift, and I try to give that gift to the people I work with.

Matt Edmundson [13:38 - 14:47]: Fantastic. Fantastic. I mean, I love that, love that story. Make the adjustment. It's one of the things that. Having been around a little bit myself, Chris, you know, I remember the sort of the movies, you know, the, The, The. The old school Movies, like I say old school, you know, like 80s movies where you would have the sort of. The coach and you would have this guy, you know, with the one liners. I'm thinking like Mr. Miyagi and karate Kid, you know, these kind of, these kind of guys. And I'm like, yeah, you know, I just remember these sort of films with these coaches who would have this sort of advice that it. And I'm sort of thinking today and I'm like, I don't see that as much on TV now everything seems to have got a little bit more complicated, you know, so you, you were right. Make the adjustment. Whereas today you'd probably have to have a. I don't know, and I don't want to belittle anything, but maybe some pastoral advice and then somebody over here and maybe a bit of therapy. And so whereas it feels like we've overcomplicated things a little bit. And what I love is this sort of old school, right, Coach, just go, no, make the adjustment.

Chris Mader [14:47 - 14:48]: Make the adjustment.

Matt Edmundson [14:48 - 14:56]: And it's as simple as that. And I don't know, maybe it's just me being a bit too nostalgic and maybe we haven't overcomplicated things, but I love the story.

Chris Mader [14:56 - 17:08]: Yeah, I know. I think you're onto it. And I agree. I think I've always made the comment there's no school like old school. I just think that there's a lot of old school principles and philosophies that the world has lost a little bit of track of and it's nice to bring them back. I mean, as a baby boomer, you know, I think I shouldn't say as a Gen Xer, right? We are the last generation to grow up in a world without computers, in a world without cell phones, all this old school stuff. And so. But we're also young enough to know how to use computers and technology, et cetera. So whereas the boomers sometimes struggle with it. So for me, it's nice to bring the message and I've done a few keynotes. Matt, what's fascinating, okay, is I write the book. It's exciting. I've done a couple of keynotes and one of the questions I get is, well, Chris, you get to write another book. What would be about my. My answer so far has been, oh, I'm going to write another book called make the Adjustment for Kids. And it's going to be kind of primary focus area of that 12 to 18 age range. This book can be read by anybody over 18. I mean, you can read it at 13 and maybe get it. But my book's really more for adults. I want to make a book to help these kind of child and adolescent kids make the adjustment because. And I have three of them, by the way. I have a 20, I mean, I have a 24, 22 and 20 year old that are, you know, they're growing up. But even my kids still have to make the adjustment. And so they already know what's coming. When they come talk to dad about whatever's going on at work or at school or in a relationship. I'm like, you're in control of these outcomes. You're in control of what you do and don't do. So if you're in a bad relationship right now, you're the one who has to make the adjustment. Right. You can't control the other side. You can't control what the other person's going to do. You can only control what you do. And as soon as you start to. In my keynotes, I'll give away, you know, one of the, one of the talking points. I have a picture of mirror and I'll say, you know, if you need to make an adjustment right now and you look in the mirror and you don't like what you see, the bad news is you're the problem. But the good news is you're the solution. You know, so people look at the mirror and see the problem like, no, no, you're the way out of the hole. Whatever hole you're stuck in, you can choose to get out of the hole. And my book kind of really frames the algorithm of the mindset and the approach that I believe any human can take to get out of whatever hole that they're stuck in, whether it's at work or in their personal.

Matt Edmundson [17:09 - 17:27]: Yeah, that's really good. That's really good. I love that there's no school, like old school in it. And I, and, and I, I love how you're also thinking about kids as well, because you're right, I, One of the interesting things that I, you know, I've got three kids of my own, similar sorts of ages actually. Chris.

Chris Mader [17:27 - 17:27]: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson [17:29 - 18:35]: I remember my eldest, who academically, really clever kid. I mean, straight A's, sailed through and every lovely kid. I mean, super proud of all my kids. I'm not going to lie that, you know, I feel like I've looked out in a massive way. Yeah. But I remember when he was, I hope he doesn't mind me telling the story, but he, when he took his first driving test, he failed. And I Remember sitting there thinking, I said to my. I think. I don't know what my exact words were, but something along the lines of sudden. That's brilliant. It's like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, it's good that you failed at something because up until now he'd not really failed at anything. Right. And, and, and it wasn't then that you started asking a few girls out and some of the girls said no. And, and like, actually, I was quite grateful for this because, yeah, I wanted him to understand he needed to be resilient, you know, and it's this really odd tension, isn't it, as a parent, where you want the world for your kids, but I don't want kids that are so soft and so.

Chris Mader [18:35 - 18:36]: Right.

Matt Edmundson [18:36 - 18:37]: Entitled.

Chris Mader [18:37 - 18:38]: Right, right.

Matt Edmundson [18:38 - 18:41]: That they. They're a burden on society. Right.

Chris Mader [18:41 - 18:43]: You know, I get, I get it.

Matt Edmundson [18:43 - 18:44]: I'm glad you're going to do that.

Chris Mader [18:45 - 19:02]: Yeah, it's great. Well into your point, like, even that story, I've been inspired by certain coaches or books or, you know, so Jocko Wilnick, ex Navy seal, has a phrase. Good. Just like you said, hey, you failed your test. Good. Right, good. Like there's something to be learned from that. And so I get what you're saying. And.

Matt Edmundson [19:02 - 19:04]: Well, he wrote the book Extreme Ownership, didn't he?

Chris Mader [19:04 - 19:23]: He did. Great book. It's excellent. One of the best leadership books out there, for sure. And, and that's when I knew I was on track too, because a lot before I read that book, between Bob Dickey and other leaders, I work for Dan Foley. There's so many I could list, but I feel like I learned a lot of those lessons already. But, yeah, Jekyll's book's outstanding. It's one of them.

Matt Edmundson [19:23 - 20:02]: Yeah. I remember the first time I read it. I've. I've read it several times because there's just no escape is that you can't. Yeah, you can't pass the book. It doesn't. It doesn't give you any room to sort of manoeuvre out of that. So I'm curious, Chris. I mean, you've been. You've travelled the world, you've done a lot, you've written a book, you're an established author now. You've. You've got some, you know, these ideas and so on and so forth. What's been a big challenge then, that you've had to face, that you've had to go through yourself, that you've had to push through, where maybe some of these principles were either helpful or maybe where you learned them in reality.

Chris Mader [20:03 - 21:22]: Well, I mean, it almost starts 18 months ago, I'll tell you that. I was at that crossroads in my life where I had the golden handcuffs, where I was making a very good living for 27 years and had opportunities to keep running companies. You know, CRO, CEO, SVP of sales, whatever job title I could get. And I made the very cognitive decision to go on what I now come to find out is called the Hero's Journey. There's a book, the Hero of a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, that I just learned about, like a few weeks ago when somebody read my book and said, chris, you just went on this journey. So that's what happened to me. I had to kind of give up the, you know, the, the guaranteed income to take a chance and start a business as a, you know, so you talk about, you know, being self employed. It's my first time at age 53 starting my own company. So even though I've run companies, I know, I feel like I know the levers deploy, know what I'm doing. I can sell, I can deliver all that stuff. You open the doors. There is no revenue, there's no pipeline. You know, you would just have these ideas and this, this kind of belief. And I always had this belief in myself, and I give my parents a lot of credit. My mom passed away a couple months ago. It's very sad, you know, long journey with COPD and emphysema. And she, she finally passed, which in a way was a blessing. She was sick, but my parents gave me an ins. I'm an only child. Gave me an insane amount of belief.

Matt Edmundson [21:22 - 21:22]: Yeah.

Chris Mader [21:22 - 23:12]: And so I'm very fortunate and lucky to have that belief because I've always joked that hope is not a Strategy. But on May 19, Hope was a strategy. I'm like, all right, I hope this works, you know. And so I'm making less than I did two years ago, but I made more this year than I did last year. And I can see the run rate for next year is looking really good. And I'm feeling really good about what I do. I have no anxiety. My clients are very happy. I love the work that I do. So I think taking that step back a year and a half ago and taking a hard reset. There was another book that I read during that. It was about the Spanish Armada, Burn the Boats, where they talked about there was a general in the Spanish Armada in the war, and they were losing the battle, and he said, burn the boats. And the soldiers said, why? He goes, well, if you burn the boats, there's no plan B, and there's only plan B. We have to win. We can't lose. And so I started to research that concept, and sure enough, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, you start to go through these very successful people. Derek Jeter, they had one plan A. There was no plan B. So Ed Sheeran, when he was trying to learn guitar and, you know, slugging down at bars, making €200 or whatever it was at the time, he's like, look it, if I can make 200, 200 bucks a night, I'll be fine the rest of my life. And he was just focused on mastering being an amazing musician. And so once I decided to start my business, I burned the boats. I stopped taking recruiting calls. I wasn't listening to that. I'm like, I am going forward, even though I'm making less, I believe in what I'm doing. My clients are telling me when I'm doing works. I've had. I've had 18 client engagements in a year and a half. 17 have renewed their contract, and the only one that didn't was a company where the leader went to another company and hired me. So. So it's kind of like 18 for 18, so. So I know what I'm doing is working. I'm, you know, I'm just continuing to build the business. But it was. It was a huge leap of faith. It was a huge leap of faith.

Matt Edmundson [23:13 - 23:14]: How was your family with that?

Chris Mader [23:15 - 24:29]: I had the support. So my wife and I talked about it, and her rule was, basically, look at Chris. I want you to be happy, but as long as the bills get paid and we can figure it out, you'll. She goes, I have complete confidence you'll figure this out. So I cut back. Yeah, cut back on some expenses and certain things. I. Instead of the $120 a month gym membership, I bought a bunch of kettlebells and work out on my own, you know, but you just cut back a little bit and be smart about money. And, you know, there's a chapter in my book, Mac, called owner's mentality. And it was a lesson I learned back in the 90s. So I started a division or a branch for a company with somebody else's money. And I asked him, I'm like, hey, what's your. What's your silver bullet advice? And he said, chris, act like it's your own money. Like, I know it's the company's money, but your rent, your employees, your marketing, everything you do, just act like it's your Own money and you'll make the right decision. And so sure enough, when I start my own company, owner's mentality kicked right in. Okay. If I'm going to spend a thousand dollars on an email list, I gotta be really sure I vet that list. And I know what I'm, you know, because I don't want to waste a dollar because everything matters. So. And then again, owner's mentality goes into your personal life, right? So only your outcomes with your fitness or your food or whatever else it is. But yeah, no, I was, you know, my, my parents were like, chris, you should do it. And my wife supported me and that's really all I needed.

Matt Edmundson [24:29 - 26:29]: Yeah, it's fun. It's interesting, isn't it, how when I started my journey, similar thing, I had a job and I was, it was, it was, it was, it was an all right job and I enjoy, I actually really love what I was doing, to be fair, Chris. And I lost my job and I had a, my first, my firstborn child. He was, he was maybe a few months old when this had all started to happen. I think it was, yeah, it wasn't, you know, so I've got a wife, I've got a new kid, I've got debt and I have, I have this crazy idea, right? And I, looking back, people ask me about it all the time, but looking back, I would never have been able to do what I've done if it wasn't for my wife, right? And that support from her because she was working, she, when we had Josh, my eldest, she had a job. She actually earned more money than I did for a season and she, she quit her job because she wanted to be a full time mum. She just, and that was it. There was no going back. She was like, yeah. And so I was the sole source of income. And you just kind of, you do, you look back, all the, all the bridges are burnt in some respects and what you've got is an idea. But I, I look back and I go, there's a great quote by a chap called Smith Wigglesworth which has always stuck with me. And he said, everything that I am under God, I owe to my dear wife. And I think, what a remarkable story. And I, and I look back and I haven't been in business, however long, 20 odd years now, and you just kind of go every step of the way. Whenever it's been tricky, whenever it's been difficult, whenever it's been good. I've had the support of Sharon, my wife, and that's a Remarkable thing. I think so. It's lovely to hear you say that. Yeah.

Chris Mader [26:29 - 27:57]: No, and you as well. I mean, it's the absolute truth. To your point. I, I don't think you can take that extra leap of faith across that abyss without that level of support. I would say, too. And I'm sure you, you find this as well. Like, you're, you're. My wife is my accountability partner. And so if I'm off track, she has no problem telling me I'm off track. And I, and I need. And I. Honestly, the one thing about Melissa, so. By the way, she has a master's degree in behavioural psychology. She's a therapist. She's a therapist. So you talk about, like, you talk about emotional intelligence. Right. So she tries not to give me therapy. But I will say this. When I'm off track, she, she has intuition. Like, if my, my superpower is recall, I can remember things from dates and times and just recite it, that's what I can do. Hers is intuition. She can see five steps ahead of almost any situation and work relationships. It's insane. So when she says, hey, Chris, like, you're, you're, you're not anticipating something, you're missing something, I listen because she's right. You know, I grew up, you know, only child, a bit naive. I don't always see maybe the pitfall ahead. She's like, oh, Chris, you're going to fall into that hole if you don't do this now. Like, oh, thank God you said something, you know, so, I mean, on the other side of accountability is fun. She, we have so much fun together. And yeah, she's my best friend, we hang out, all that good stuff. But yeah, she's, she's my accountability partner and she can see things I can't see, which I think is great to have in a complimentary, you know, having a partner that compliments you.

Matt Edmundson [27:57 - 28:25]: Yeah, fantastic. That's really good. That's really good. I'm intrigued. Then you took the leap. You decided, no, I'm going to give this a go. One of the most amazing stats I heard, which surprised me. Someone said to me, what's the average age someone starts their business? And I think I just rolled off, I don't know, 23, 24. And it's actually in the mid-40s is the typical age people sort of start a business. So you're not too far away.

Chris Mader [28:25 - 28:25]: Right.

Matt Edmundson [28:27 - 28:40]: What's been, what's been the biggest lesson so far? I mean, you're a few years into it and you've come from this hyper successful corporate job. What's, what's been the biggest lesson?

Chris Mader [28:40 - 30:22]: So I, I just learned it this summer. So I had incremental revenue growth from May of 2023 through June of 2024. And I, I was, I was very humbled. I was not overconfident. I was like, wow, I'm really lucky. My network came to life and what I'm doing is working and this is great. But what I didn't do is I had two big engagements that were ending in July and as a sales executive, I didn't look ahead of my pipeline and I didn't really have a strategy in place. Everything I had had was based on referrals. And so there is a quote and it is, I want to get it right. I don't know if it's Andy Elliott or who said it, but he said, the things that you're not doing now are the things that are going to prohibit your growth in the future. And I was like, there were things I wasn't doing in that moment. Actually, it was Alex Hormozi who said it. Alex Hormoz, the things you're not doing now is what's going to prohibit your success in the future. And so I didn't have a robust pipeline approach and I'm a CRO, like, I know better. I was busy delivering content, I was busy travelling, I was doing my job, but I didn't have a strategy. And so shame on me. And that was a lesson that I learned the hard way in June, July, thankfully, you know, so July revenues down, August revenues down, September revenues down. I'm like, oh, boy, like we're on the slide. And it was down in October, it's up in November, up in December, trending back. So like we're November, December, January looks really good. So I feel back to stable. And I feel like I have a strategy in place now that will flag me long before that ever, you know, revenue dip happens again. I would say that's one of the big lessons I've learned.

Matt Edmundson [30:23 - 31:38]: That's really interesting point, isn't it? And I, I mean, I, I, I have, I have businesses where you have your traditional clients have businesses, which is your, you know, your E comms, you sell in digital. And the, the one thing I think I've become obsessed by is, is the pipeline and the number of new customers that we're getting. What's a new customer acquisition. And in E commerce, in some respects, it's easier to manage, it's almost easier to predict, but it applies across Both ways, isn't it? Because you, you. I was given some advice recently about selling the company and they're like, kind of what, you found a buyer, Great, go find another one. Don't, don't just assume that they're going to buy it. And so when we sold the company, we had two buyers bidding against each other based off of that advice. And I think this is, this is quite interesting, isn't it? This sort of, this constant, this perpetual going and getting the leads going, getting the referrals going, getting the, you know, the conversations, the network, and doing what it takes to build that in a meaningful way. Because doing content doesn't necessarily do it, doing Instagram doesn't necessarily do it. But there, there is something that does seem to do it for you, and you have to get into that groove pretty quickly and stay in it.

Chris Mader [31:38 - 32:51]: Yep, yep. Yeah. I mean, I would say again, I didn't have a robust outbound strategy. I mean, I was networking, I was going to conferences. I'm doing a lot of the things you're supposed to do. But I know my target audience is companies doing 10 to 100 million. Because under 10 million can't usually invest in executive coaching, leadership coaching, et cetera. Over 100 million. They have their own training department. And by the way, I've talked to a company as a billion that might bring me in to do some executive coaching. But my sweet spot, yeah, is 10 to 100 million because I know those companies do not have a robust training department, but they have enough money to invest in their people and they just don't know what to do. And so I'm kind of a plug and play, you know, executive coach, leadership coach, sales coach. I can do boot camps, I can, I can do it one day, I can do it over nine months. I can do all kinds of different things. So, um, you know, so for me, it was just, yeah, the, the top of the funnel and keeping that more consistent now. And to your point, having choices. I mean, for the first time in October, I had, I actually had a client I walked away from because, you know, they're trying to negotiate to a point where I'm just talking look at, like, if you don't see the value in what I do and this doesn't make sense for you, that's okay. Yeah, I wouldn't have said that if I'd have a pipeline. But once you have a pipeline, you have, you have a little more leverage.

Matt Edmundson [32:51 - 33:09]: So, yeah, you do have a lot more power. And my dad, I remember my dad saying that to Me once, because I went my dad years ago and I said, dad, I think I'm just going to say no to this guy because I want, you know, obviously I want more clients, but I think I'm at a place now where I don't have to bend over backwards to this.

Chris Mader [33:09 - 33:10]: Take the right clients.

Matt Edmundson [33:10 - 33:10]: Right?

Chris Mader [33:10 - 33:12]: You want to take the right clients. Yeah.

Matt Edmundson [33:12 - 33:15]: And my dad said to me, said, son, you've just grown up in your business.

Chris Mader [33:15 - 33:16]: Yeah, it's true.

Matt Edmundson [33:16 - 33:26]: In that sense, the first time you can say no to somebody is, is quite a liberating thing in many ways, because you don't feel you can in the early days because you just think you need the money really.

Chris Mader [33:26 - 33:26]: Exactly.

Matt Edmundson [33:26 - 33:34]: Right. Not that anything was, you know, nothing compromised values, but I think you're right, you get to choose, you get to choose a little bit more, don't you?

Chris Mader [33:34 - 33:35]: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson [33:35 - 33:52]: How do you, so how do you, how do you manage your day to day? I mean, you've got a lot going on. You're starting your business, building your revenue, building your pipeline, writing a book, you background in professional athlete. How do you stay recharged? How do you stay on, on top of your game?

Chris Mader [33:52 - 37:04]: Well, I, I'll say that the first nine months I, I enjoyed being a company of one, but I started to realise I needed some help. So I reached out to my Rollins College network and I found a, a paid intern through the master's programme they have down there. A woman that's studying international business, 22 years old, incredibly smarter than me and you know, she works for me part time and we do weekly one on ones for 30 minutes. She does a lot of my training, content development, a lot of my social media content. I've learned a lot from her already great assets, so just having a little bit of support there has helped me stay focused more on the actual client interactions. But for me, having the discipline, I, you know, I, I, I'll tell you, Matt, I, I lost myself probably 10 years ago, right? I gained a bunch of weight. When Covid happened, I was drinking too much, I got depressed. So, you know, a lot of things unravelled for me there and I just woke up one day and decided like, enough like Chris, you know better. And I wanted to look in the mirror and see the guy I saw when I played professional baseball. And so cut the sauce, went back into the gym, hired a coach, hired a nutritionist, if you will, read some books on it, and just had discipline and you know, with discipline comes positive change. So I lost 40 pounds, just slept better, felt better, relationships Improved all of those things. You know, went to mental health therapy as well. I think that's useful, you know, and really the therapist was great. Like, my, my therapist is a good guy. And he just started talking about the four basics. He's like, Chris, you need to sleep better, you need to stop drinking, you need to start working out, and you need to start just, you know, being more mindful and take care of yourself because you can't take care of other people. You can't take care of yourself and. Sounded simple, but once you really fo. But once you really focus on it, start to execute a plan, meaning block off time in your day to work out. Block off time your day for your family. In my book, Matt, I actually went through this exercise. 720 hours in a month, we have 720 hours. Take eight hours a day out to sleep. Right now you have 540, whatever the numbers left. How do you spend your time? And it's an exercise that I challenged myself to do and I used to. I found at the time I was out of balance five, 10 years ago. And so I wanted to spend more time with my kids, I want to spend time with my wife, I want to spend more time with my friends. And I was over invested in work. And like you said, you know, I was successful, I was making good money, but I was out of balance in my life. I had high anxiety, I wasn't happy, I gained weight. And so I'm finding that balance now. I mean, it's funny, I actually, in my keynotes, I have an X, y and Z axis of my entire life where I try to show people my level of anxiety, happiness and income. And it's funny how the income, when the income was almost lower, my happiness was higher, my anxiety. It's the strangest thing because as a provider like you, you need to make money for your family. But if I make enough money to support my family, it's enough money. I don't need all the extra things, you know, Do I want a brand new Range Rover? Sure. But you know what? I don't need it. Right. It's like, you know, I'm happy with what I got. So, um. So yeah, it's just funny how what makes everybody tick, right? For me, it was my own personal fitness, my own happiness. My family getting more grounded made me happier than all the others.

Matt Edmundson [37:04 - 37:14]: That's really powerful. I. I'm intrigued, if you don't mind me asking, Chris, what you talked about depression and Covid. What, what caused the depression so well.

Chris Mader [37:15 - 39:20]: For me, so Candidly, and I have no problem telling the story. It's in the book. I was divorced a few years ago, so I was married to my first wife in 96 to 2021. And in 2015 we went to counselling and we kind of didn't. We got to a place where we weren't a good place. We, we, we weren't friends anymore. We weren't enjoying each other's company, we weren't fighting, but we weren't happy. And we both agreed at that time that we were going to raise our kids and we were going to try to work it out. And so we, we kind of just. I always say to people we were like the earth and the moon. I was the earth and she was the moon or whatever. We just kind of revolve around each other. But when Covid happened and you're alone, you know, the running joke is, you know, people either got divorced or had babies during COVID They either got really close to their spouse or they got further away. And after a few months of COVID I remember talking to my ex wife, I said, you know, Kristen, is this our retirement? Like, if we're together, like, we're not even. Like, we don't even enjoy hanging out. We don't do the same things, like, what are we doing? And I go, before we like hate each other, can we just like shake hands in part ways? Like, this is like, I'm not happy. And I don't think. I can't speak for you. I don't think you're happy either. And so we agreed to get divorced. And from that moment on, I felt like I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Like, I felt like, okay, I can find myself again. I was lost. I was just lost. You know, I didn't know who I was. I wasn't as self aware as I needed to be. There's just so many things I look back on. I'm like, wow. Like, I just was lost. And I was in the grind of the job and the grind supporting my kids and all the stuff that a lot of people go through. But it's funny you say that, Matt, about, you know, people in their 40s started. Start a new business. The statistic I read is, yeah, it happens between the age 40 and 55, because a lot of men have earned a good living. And then they start to feel micromanaged or they start to have these feelings of I'm stuck and they want to feel unstuck. And so for me, my own personal journey was Just, you know, again, it's no, I will never say a bad word about my ex wife. It's just, we just grew apart. But it's what I needed to be happy in life and move on. And I made that very difficult decision and I have zero regrets about it. There's a lot of sadness and guilt, but zero regrets.

Matt Edmundson [39:21 - 39:29]: Wow. So you then obviously that brings you out of the depression that and obviously making the adjustment time that all.

Chris Mader [39:29 - 39:37]: I made the adjustment. I changed my job, my relationship situation where I lived. Like I made many, many adjustments that year. Yeah.

Matt Edmundson [39:37 - 39:48]: It's interesting, isn't it? I do wonder when you, they talk about how in your sort of the first cycle of your working life, it's all about success.

Chris Mader [39:48 - 39:48]: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson [39:48 - 40:40]: In the second cycle of your working life, it's all about significance. And so there's this shift where I move from. I have to make a shed load of cash to support a lifestyle to going, well, what's the lifestyle I'm actually trying to support? Right, right, right. And what's the impact of that lifestyle? I tend to find this is quite unique. Maybe in the, in I'm gonna call us the older entrepreneurs, not in a pretentious way, but just, you know, we've been around a few years and I, I, I, I've, I've had the sports cars, Chris. I drive a van now and it's the best car I've ever owned in many ways. And it's, and I, and I, and I'm just like I had. There were some things I had to get out of my system, obviously.

Chris Mader [40:40 - 40:40]: Sure.

Matt Edmundson [40:41 - 41:19]: And, but I, I think I look at life differently now. I think I look at lifestyle differently. I think I look at what I need differently than, and maybe that's a season, maybe my kids are getting on, you know, two of them have left home. I've got one left in the house. Maybe that's why, I don't know. But I, I'm intrigued because here you are, you, you've sort of, you've had that, that mental shift, haven't you? It feels like, you know, when you're working in corporate, you want the Range Rover because there's the success. And I've got to measure that achievement. And this is how I measure it when I work for myself. I measure that success in a different way, maybe.

Chris Mader [41:19 - 43:10]: Correct. A thousand percent. I mean, and I talk about a Range Rover. I did own one back in 20 years ago and I found that one of the best cars I ever owned, but it was in the shop every other month. I was sitting next to a hockey player named Mark Savard, who you may not know, he played for the Bruins. Now I'm making like 300,000 a year. Maybe at the time, Mark Savard's making 4 million a year. Okay, wow. I'm sitting in the dealership and he's sitting next to me. We're talking about hockey and stuff. And, and I'm sitting there going like, I don't make 4 million a year. Like, why am I driving this car? Like, I really shouldn't be driving this car. Like, I make good money, but like, what am I doing? You know? And you know, because every time I'm in the shop, it's 2 3, 234 grand. And so I just started to dial some of that stuff back. But to your point, now it's like I talk about in my, in my author talks, the X, Y and Z axis. Like, everybody has to put in the axis of like, what's going to make you the most happy with the least amount of anxiety. So your bills are paid and you're achieving the goals that you want to achieve. And you know, Simon's, you know the books I have behind me, I mean, my, my three favourite books, right? Start with why Simon Sinek, Marshall Goldsmith will get you here and get you there. And of course, my own book now make the adjustments. Yeah, but chapter one, I literally referenced Simon Sinek. Start with why? Like, what is your greater purpose? Like, why are we here? What are we trying to do? What are we trying to accomplish? What's going to make you happy? And once you establish the purpose. All the studies have been done on, once you're purpose driven, you'll get up earlier, you'll stay later. I mean, Matt, I worked this weekend. Now I say I work this weekend. I'm an entrepreneur. Okay. I had to finish reading the book Fraudible. I go in three hours on Saturday, three and a half hours on Sunday. It didn't feel like work. It gets my passion. I love doing it. It doesn't feel like work. So I feel very lucky to be making half of what I used to make, but doing the work that I love to do. And like you said, it's purpose driven work and I know the impact it has on other people, which, which gives me great joy.

Matt Edmundson [43:11 - 43:17]: Yeah, Yeah. I love this purpose driven work. I think this. Did you know what your purpose was in your 20s?

Chris Mader [43:19 - 44:47]: So I. No, not in my 20s. I'll tell you why. Because I talk about professional baseball. When I was a kid, I was a husky, overweight kid in The North Shore of Massachusetts, trying to find myself like any adolescent would. And I found that I was pretty good at baseball. It started to bring me self esteem and confidence. And when I was like age 10 or 11, I'm like, I want to play professional baseball. And everybody laughed at me. Like, Chris, nobody from Tuxbury's ever played bait. Like it's a joke. Sure enough, I win Mass A player of the year. I was just on my mission. I'm like, I am going to do this. I'm going to prove people wrong. This is what I'm going to do. I had a quote on my wallet. So the greatest pleasure in life is proving other people wrong, basically. And I'm like, I will prove all these people wrong. And sure enough, I went to a great school, I got drafted, played professional baseball. Now four years into it, I played for four seasons. You start to look up the food chain and say, wow, there's a lot of good players ahead of me. Am I really going to make it to the big leagues? And people have said, chris, are you any good? I'm like, well, I was the top 100 third baseman in the world, you know, so top 100, you know, top 1% of 1% is pretty good. However, there's only 35 or 40 third baseman that play in the big leagues. So if I'm ranked 100, there's still 60 guys I got to get past. And I have a math degree. So I started to see the realisation of like, wow, I'm probably not going to make big. So when I retired, my dad was in sales. I have, I'm, I was a natural extrovert. I'm like, I'll, I'll get a sales career going. But did I know what my purpose was other than making sure I supported my family? No, I didn't really know at that time.

Matt Edmundson [44:47 - 45:03]: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I, I, I, I. And I think purpose is one of those things that sort of is revealed to you as you walk through life, isn't it? It's, yeah, it becomes clearer as your experience becomes clearer. And I think purpose is different to goals. I definitely had goals in my 20s.

Chris Mader [45:03 - 45:04]: Right.

Matt Edmundson [45:05 - 45:13]: But purpose is a trickier one, I think. And maybe because we didn't talk about it as much back then, you know.

Chris Mader [45:13 - 45:15]: This was, yeah, you're right.

Matt Edmundson [45:15 - 45:41]: To the sort of the early late 80s, early 90s. It's not, I don't know, we talked a lot about goals. I remember Brian Tracy and all those guys talking about goals all the time. Listen, Chris, I'm getting engrossed in the conversation, but I'm aware of time and I don't want it just to run away from me. If people want to reach out to you, if they want to connect with you, maybe get the book, what's the best way to do that?

Chris Mader [45:41 - 46:14]: You bet. So you can find me on Instagram @mtaconsultancy cy at the end, I'm also on Instagram at mta-consultancy You can find me there as well. And if you, you know, any. Anywhere books are sold, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Amazon, Make the Adjustment by Chris Mader, you can find it there. And yeah, I'm proud to say, you know, 562 copies sold. It hit number 24 on the list last week on Amazon, which was really cool to see, you know, climbing the charts, you know, in my category anyways. So, yeah, it's. Yeah, you can reach out to me at any of those, any of those channels.

Matt Edmundson [46:14 - 46:43]: Fantastic. We will of course link to all of those in the show notes. So if you're listening on your favourite podcast app, you can scroll down and the links will be there. If you're watching on YouTube, they will be in the description and of course you will also find them on our website with the transcript and show notes at pushtobemore.com But Chris, genuinely loved, loved, loved the conversation, man. Really appreciate it. You, big shout out again to Neil. Thanks for introducing us, but it's been wonderful, man, and I wish you all the best with the business.

Chris Mader [46:43 - 46:54]: Thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation. I'm really glad we're connected. I know we'll talk again and yeah, thanks for allowing me to talk to your audience as well and share my story. And yeah, I've really thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. Thank you, Matt.

Matt Edmundson [46:54 - 48:00]: Fantastic. Well, that's a wrap on another phenomenal conversation. Let me do this because I can. There we go. Massive round of applause for Chris for joining us today. Huge thanks. Also to today's champion sponsor, Podjunction. Like I said, if you want to understand podcasting and how it can really help you with your business, Go check it out podjunction.com now remember, keep pushing to be more. Don't forget to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts from because we've got some more great conversations coming up and I don't want you to miss any of them. And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first. You are awesome. Yes, you are created awesome. It's just a burden you have got to bear, Chris. Has got to bear it. I've got to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now Push to Be More is brought to life, as I said, by Pod Junction. The transcripts, the show notes are all on the website. Big kudos to Podjunction Junction team for making this show possible. But from Chris and from me, thanks for joining in. Have an awesome week. I'll catch you on the flip side. Until then, keep pushing. Bye for now.