The Secret To Building A Successful Side Business! Feat.Chris Williams

Authentic Leadership Podcast, a podcast we are seeking to lead change while also seeking to understand. We're all here as a platform for leaders to come together to unite to develop and empower other leaders in the areas business, family and community. I'm your host, Lafayette Lane joined by co-host John Lebrun. Today we are joined by a special guest Chris Williams, who has joined us to have an amazing conversation about the secret to building a successful side business. Chris Williams is the host of the Team WAC Podcast, a podcast designed to help the struggling entrepreneurs, network marketers and small business owners take their businesses to the next level. Chris Life mission is to help all men focus on growing up and leveling up. And today, he has joined us right here on the Unscripted: Authentic Leadership Podcast Chris, thanks for coming on. Hey, man up, man. I feel good. This is great. Let's let's let's get into it, man. I'm happy to be here. I definitely appreciate your having me, man. This is a this is a dope platform. You guys have been. I like this. This is this powerful. Absolutely. Absolutely. I feel the same way. I know John feels the same way. Let's get right into the conversation, man. You have amazing, amazing few things going on. You have a podcast. You are a business owner. You're a coach. And where did that passion come from to help men and struggling entrepreneurs? Where did all that come from? Can you give us a little bit of your backstory? How you got to this point where you are today? Yeah, it actually started because I spent 13 years serving in a church my what's interesting is probably 04 is actually when I first moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, and we moved it was because we were helping build a satellite campus and we end up building like a 20,000 square foot church, three different, you know, services on a Sunday you got really large in. The thing that I remember the most during that time was always like, you know, it's exhausting and there's a lot to do and you do a lot of things. But the one thing I always remember is going, Man, the human condition is is in bad shape. And so I've developed this, I guess just this empathy behind why people show up the way they do, right? Why do people, you know, show up angry? You know, why do why do people show up lethargic? Why do people show up happy? Why do people wander? Right. Like I just used to be curious about like, what is it about when people come into a space that the things that they before they got there. Right. Are really impacting their ability to be present, right? I think that was the first thing. Then my corporate career I've got an extensive learning and development background. And so in doing a lot of training, I realized I was not necessarily interested in like training people in a book that didn't really make a whole lot of sense and just kind of barricading some information. I found out from one of my manager at one time because I kept asking questions about the people. Like I was just always curious about people and they said, Hey, I think you probably are more interested in organizational psychology. I was like, The heck is it? And they was like, You need to go check this stuff out. So I started looking at organizational psychology. I started doing the the the rabbit hole dance down behavioral science and in neuroscience. And it was like, Oh, I actually like this. Like, like, I like seeing what makes people tick, right? Like, I like understanding why people do what they do without need to, you know, without judgment is just I like to understand, right? Like, I don't necessarily I'm not looking to judge it. I just like knowing, oh, that's the reason why that person may feel like that. That's the reason why that person may operate like that. Right. And it just became something that was like amazing. Chris, I want to go back to the first thing that you said, because I think that's powerful. You said you moved to serve and I think that is so overlooked in today's society. The power of servitude. Can you speak to how important that is as leaders, as entrepreneurs, as coaches, as business managers, CEOs, and even in your field, the psychologists and so forth, that the importance of having the attitude and the mindset to be a servant first man? Oh, that's a great question. I think it's hard, adequate to find in short words only because you'd have to have had an opportunity to experience what I like. Like some people learn the value of it. By going on a mission trip. Some people learn it by becoming an instant caregiver to an ailing parent. Right. Some people. Right. Like if you've had an experience where you were either thrust oral and told into serving. Right. Or then you you kind of understand it. I guess the best way I can, I can I can help the listener right now understand serving is it will help you understand the character that it takes to actually move people if you can if you can learn to serve the most difficult person. If you can learn to serve without the need to get something back, if you can learn to to to to truly like be there just for the individual and and having and having a complete understanding that that moment they might not care less about ever again it's they just kind of walked in, got what they wanted and left right is like if you worked at a you know Best Buy, right. And you just walk in and you say hi to somebody, right? They're like, I'm just going to pick up some great. They don't even think about the high they don't think about the person that when they got to the aisle that show them where the thing is, they don't think about the person that check them out. They don't even think about the people that put it all together to make it nice and neat for when you walked in. And, you know, no one's thinking about that. They're just thinking about themselves. And so I think when when you serve and it helped me like a lot because what's interesting is like, I guess I can get to that later. Like my wife. Like, that's the only way I was able to get my wife is because her her love language is actually service. And she's an entrepreneur, theologian herself. So it was like there's a funny story about how we even got together. But like, it's this I think it's the one key that many of us sometimes forget. It's not that we don't know how to serve. If you got kids, come on, man, like, oh, yeah, come on. Like, you get it right. Like, it's a thankless job, right? But I think you learn things that can help you at work in tough times. When things are good, it can help you make sense of, like, what somebody else might be going through at a time, right? It's just it's one of those things that I always say, like, I wish I hope everybody takes an opportunity to actually choose to go serve. Like, go serve someone. Go go see what that's like. Don't just go to the soup kitchen and go, you know, do plates. No, actually, like, serve somebody, like for real on a personal level. And I think it will humble all of us, right? It drops our ego. It stops us from having the the insatiable desire to consume and it just teaches us given. So like even as podcasts, right? Like y'all's podcast is serving somebody. You're right. It is somebody who's listening and they go, man, all right, I can do this one more day. Thanks. I know. So I hope that helps. Is hard to quantify serving those, but I was good. I was I think I think servitude helps develop gratitude. Mm. Because when you serve right, you start to understand what it takes to do things. So when I take my kids into the grocery store, I tell them all the time, hey, guys, look at these, this amazing fruit section. There's no bad apples. They're all beautiful, and they're even placed strategically in nice rows. I say, if you go to most countries, that doesn't exist. That seems silly. I won't. But just notice it. Our produce has little sprinkles of water. They come down every 5 minutes to make sure they're perfectly moist. It's ridiculous, right? And even then, we're still like, are these cucumbers good enough? Right? I mean, and I'm guilty, but I tell them all the time when I go and like, look how beautiful this area is, because we are like fruit connoisseurs. We take all of it. And I'm just I'm just happy that I pay for it to buy it and as much fruit as they want because so many families can't do that, I'm like, Look, you can get as many strawberries as you want, that kind of thing. But so I think servitude develops gravity, and I think it also helps develop empathy. So, for example, we like to go and do a charity called Shoes for the Shoeless. Actually have a little thing right? Here we go. And you actually take the shoes off of kids who don't have the families, can't supply them with new shoes, and you put new shoes and socks on them and they get super stinky feet. Some have been washed in weeks. But to get down on your knees and undo that and do and put them with new shoes and socks and not sit there and be like, throw your feet or kick in, right. You just they're little some of them are severe in high school. They're not all that all. And some are like football players, but it just it just changes something inside of you. Can you talk to, though, I know we're talking a little bit about developing side hustles and so forth. Can you talk to a how servitude helps somebody find their sort of purpose? Or calling yeah. One. So I'm the youngest of six boys and no girls in the house. I'm going to I'm observant by nature. Okay. One of the things about serving, I think that is helpful, you know, a purpose, even taking the next step to figuring it out. I think what it does is it gives you the it gives you the chance to see what where you are based on, you know, what what level of serving you're doing. Right. Like some people would have done those kids shoes and like freaked out, right? So that let them know like I'm not that person right now. I've got some work to do for me to be willing to do that on a consistent basis. Right. Some people you've probably seen it before, right? Like some of the most non criers might have gotten to that moment, I might have broke down because they never you know, to me, they never thought about how blessed they might have been. Right. You know, and so I think when you put yourself in a servant space and you're intentional about it, you start to learn more about yourself than you really do about the person that you serve right. You start to figure out like, oh, I'm not as good with people who who have cancer because maybe I never like looking at my grandmother who died of cancer. Right. Maybe, you know, like it's you start to really figure out, like how you relate to what's going on. And then eventually you start to realize, hmm, I got to put myself in the best light in the best places where I'm going to serve. Or you find out that, you know what, I need to get better in that area. So let me keep digging. That will. Right. I'm too shallow, you know, of a person to get down in my in my nice blue jeans. In that mold, you know, take his shoe or put on new shoes. So you know what I need to get better at? That's you know what? I'm going to go back next year with John Wright. I'm a keep going back until I developed this this habit. So I think it it just gives you the chance to see where you are. Right. And it lets you know where your character is. And it's not a bad thing. I think self. I think servant helps with your self-awareness. Right. And so then then you can then no matter what you choose to do after that, you realize like who you are going into that thing. That's why I think it's super powerful. But doesn't would you say servitude helps somebody get through and you know, we're talking side hustles and stuff. I feel like servitude also helps somebody work through or the the passion in calling to serve somebody through whatever your business is. How do you get through those trial, you know, trials, tribulations over those mountains, so forth? Yeah. In fact, I would say you learn to not take stuff so seriously. Because, you know, because whoever you serve, right, they there if there's a negative situation or maybe your business didn't deliver the way they thought it should. Right. You learn to realize, okay, this is my opportunity to get better, right? I'm not going to blame whoever the person is. Right? I'm not going to blame. I'm going to say, okay, what didn't we do? Is this a consistent problem? Right? And let's figure out what needs to happen, right? Like you start I think you start thinking more solution oriented instead of having a problem with the problem. All right. Mhm. Go ahead. You're good. What would you what would you say? Like the first step is to someone who wants to start a side hustle are a side business. Like, what is the first fundamental step in moving towards that goal? That's a great question. I think the first thing I would say is, is really important to understand and how are you showing up right now at work I think the one thing that we forget is that if you're at work and you're, you know, pretty disengaged, I I like to call it successfully discontent, right? Like there's there's a lot of people who are successful, but they're successfully discontent. It's there they are. But they're not really they're a bit disengaged aged. You know, they're wondering and what I would say is check yourself about how you're showing up right now at your job. Secondly, are you in a role that can actually aid you in getting better? That that will that will be a catalyst to the side business type that you want to start, right. So so if I'm working, you know, packing goods. Okay. But I want to start, you know, you know, a sports you know, online store will probably need to go work at Dick's Sporting Goods. Right. So that I can start to be in those spaces. Right. If, you know, if I in if I can get there, then great. If I can't that I got to start doing the studying at home. You got to also ask I think the other part is how diligent are you with your time because if you're not really diligent, it's going to be very difficult, right? Like it's difficult enough just to, you know, run a job every day, get home, pick up the kids, get over to soccer practice, sit up, practice for 40 minutes, get them in the car, you know, get home, get dinner on that. Like it's that's difficult enough. But if you don't have a really good self-discipline about time and and and what you're going to do when then it's then you need to work on that first. That's what I would say. Those two things, I think how are you showing up at work every day and how you're disciplined today. I think it a first things before you even get down the road a path of trying to figure out what you would you ultimately want to do at all. Those things are really good. There was one thing that you said in there. You were talking about using example. If you want to open up a sports company, then probably start working at Dick's Sporting Goods, which to me speaks to the word exposure. Mike, how important is it that you put yourself in the right environment? It's like the person that says that single that wants to be married, but they don't go anywhere on the weekends. They're in the driving force that you don't put yourself in an atmosphere to be found you don't put yourself in the atmosphere to expose yourself to obtain what you're looking for. Right? So now how important is exposure? Yeah, I think it's important. I also want to quantify exposure. Spending your time watching everybody's results on this is not good. I know you that's not gonna help. Right. Like, it's I was saying this earlier today in an interview, like, some people's thumbs are so strong because we spend so much time scrolling through other people's lives that it's like, come on, man. Like, that's not gonna help you right now to get those damn gangs. Yeah, you know, so what I would say is you have to start exposing yourself to the totality of what that business is. You got. You got to be willing to go. Okay, if I want to do e-commerce sports, you know, business, right where I'm where I'm dropshipping, you know, sports equipment. Well, what does that even mean? What does dropshipping mean? What does it mean? Where does my inventory store. Right? What the heck is FBA? Most people don't even know what to FBA is, right? Like, it's, it's, it's just it's just being able to like go beyond what you want from the thing and really like taking a full spectrum look at what am all am I going to have to be responsible for. I say this all the time. Success is a thinking man and woman's game. Mm. And you have to think your way to what you want because for too many of us we're too comfortable in like several areas of our lives. So we see somebody else's results and then we go, oh, I want that. But you don't know the process and the things that they have in their life that make that result happen. And you don't realize they're thinkers most any successful person go talk to them for 5 minutes. They're really great thinkers. They just think a lot more than the average person about the industry that they're actually dominating it. Right. And so you have to, like, you honestly have to think. By the way, the book is called Think and Grow Rich, Not Sit on the Couch and Grow Rich, Not Netflix and Get Rich Not You Like it's you literally have to sit down with a pad and a pin, right. Division, make it plain right? Like, you know, as a man, think it so is he. So it's you. You literally have to take time and use this thing and go what all encompassing that world that I'm saying, you know, I want I want to be in and then be honest with yourself, like, am I willing to do that work? Because that's a different that's a different perspective of of going into that world as a side business. Right. Even if even if you love your corporate job right now. Right. Like there's a lot of people I know that they're actually good. You're not, like hurting, but they you know, they have all the desires, the things that they want to be able to do. Right. And so they look at building a side business, but sometimes the work involved and the discipline it takes is why some people back away. Wow. So I've heard a lot of people tell me they want to start a side hustle. I started doing side hustles when they weren't cool. It was like, you know, it was weird at the time. Now it's apparently very cool to do, but I'm sorry and I wish I had done it was cool and a lot easier. And I get criticized by your friends while you're not at the bar. But anyways, um, there's a lot of people that don't have a hard time, and I get this question all the time, like, I don't know what to do. I just can't find the right fit. I don't know what my real purpose or passion is, all those things. I don't know what I'm good at because I think so many people think about what they're good at as a physical trait type of thing, singing, playing ball, those types of things. How do you help somebody find where they can start in a side hustle side business? You know, it really goes back to that word exposure. But here's the other thing that we we have to understand about work. In full disclaimer, what I'm about to say is in no way against any employment, okay? But you have to understand the psychology that goes into being an employee. Mm. Okay. Am I talk about this in my five day challenge? I run a five day side business challenge, or what I do is as I help people based on what you just ask, that's what we're helping you answer, right? And it's because we got to start understanding. We've been conditioned to work a certain way we've been. And not in a bad way is just that your brain loves routine your job is built on your brain, loving a routine, loving, security, loving comfort. Two week paycheck. We pay check, whatever, right? Whatever, whatever the case may be, right? And when your brain can get into a routine, it has to use less and less energy because now it's moved it into basically autopilot. Right? Here's a test. If you've ever driven to work or driven home from work or driven for picking up the kids and you were spaced out in the car and you don't even remember the in-between, that's called autopilot. Mm. It seems scary when you realize I don't even remember how I got here. Right. But it's normal because you're you do it so routine. Your brain then is doesn't have to use anything. It's muscle memory, right? The problem is, we don't realize you're fighting against that, trying to even go search for something different because we've built all of this stock in energy and hours and effort into this role that we play in a large company right. And and while you're climbing that ladder, you're becoming more indoctrinated into that thing. Right? And it's like the matrix, right? It's like at some point, if you ever see a glitch, you're like, whoa, what what was along the GLC that like and some people probably didn't see it, but you did. Right. Most people feel it, right? They feel the the the the knowing questions they have in the back of their head about is this all I'm going to do? Right. They don't like the idea of well, there's got, you know, just work hard and, you know, work on that for a one. Like, that's just not something that appeals to a lot of people anymore because we've seen our grandparents not reap the rewards and they fuss and they complain and they argue. And now we're seeing all of what they were promised now being gone. Right. But you have this mental model of just keep working hard, just keep working hard, just keep working hard. And mostly you don't realize if you keep working hard, you make less and so the most difficult part of of of the journey is getting people to understand you are very seasoned triple black belt employee. You have no skills in actual business development. So how do they develop the skills? So I think the first thing is I want to show you awesome because this is I like showing this stuff in real time. Because, you know, I don't like just saying, hey, this is what you should do. And then people go, yeah, okay. But I really do it. This is literally a stack of books I am reading right now. I have probably about ten, 11 books on my desk right now. It's not because I'm a nerd, not because I necessarily love reading is because I am studying right now. I'm studying my industry of podcasting. I'm studying, I'm studying my ability of, of orating, I'm studying my ability, effective communication. I'm studying, you know, like I'm studying my world because I need to get better because I know what I want to offer. I know what type of value I want to be able to bring. And, and I think to be able to find what you really want to do, you have it's just like our children. We let our kids play soccer one month basketball, another month hockey in a month. Like we give them the chance to just like explore as much as you can. Right. And I think as adults, we stop doing that for our sales. We stop exploring and we stop giving our Marcel's experiences and I think we've got to keep that going because that's the only way you're going to figure out what you need. Again, if you if you're searching on social media and you're just looking at somebody else's results, that little dopamine hit to you in Rush is nothing. That's a that's not going to help you really decide if that's what you want to do, what or help is you really exposing yourself to an industry and going and talking to people. Do you know there's things like clubhouse where people have great conversations about their industry, they're deep dove and they're willing to share. You know, you got to get on platforms and you you got to use these social media platforms to learn now. Right. And I think if you start using Facebook and Instagram and following the people who actually do whatever it is that you're interested in, take their courses take their webinars, get their coaching, I think that will be the best thing you could ever do to decide if that's what you want a part of your life. Mission is to help me and focus on growing up and leveling up. But we know that principle applies to men and women right What do you mean by that? Of course, one of the things that we say on the podcast all the time is about leveling up. So that really resonates with our audience. What does it mean when you say that to to help people grow up and level up? For me, it was a statement when I when I first wrote it, when I started my my podcast, you know, now over five years ago, it was a statement for me because that's where I was I really take growth seriously. I take maturity seriously. Right. Emotional maturity seriously. I take like that. I take that seriously because I'm doing it right. And it's always stuck with me because again, being the youngest of six observed a whole lot and so I would see I would see what people go through, where they would have pitfalls, how things would go wrong, how my brothers would utterly screw up certain things in life. And I would realize, like, I don't want that path, right? So I grew up I grew up really quickly, not just because we didn't have anything but just because I was able to watch like the consequences of the way, you know, things are. And so I always said, you know, Chris, you're only focused for a period of my time was like just growing. You like fall in love with like yourself because the trinkets and all the other stuff. Like, it's cool, but but unfortunately, those things won't make you have a great attitude about life. They will. They won't help you learn emotional intelligence. They won't give you resolve. They don't they don't help you learn how to deal with hard things. They don't put you in a position to learn how to make better decisions. They don't teach you how to ask better questions like I like cars. I absolutely love cars. I'm a car guy. Just go check out my stuff. Like I'm in the car is okay. But at the end of the day, that's just something I like that doesn't make me grow right? And I realize that. And so I, I take very seriously, like my own growth. I got two boys in high school right now and one's about to graduate in May. The other one is going to be right behind him. And the biggest thing I've been talking about to them since they were, you know, coming out of middle school was that, you know, you're, you're, you're in whatever you leave our home with when you go to college that you didn't take with you is not because we didn't teach it to you. It's a lack of focus and concentration on the principles that were given. Right. And so I try to model that with my kids as much as I can because without it, I'm I don't feel like I'm doing my job. So I just take growing up like real seriously. And as you saw was a play on the words because growth was capitalized. But it's like let that be the present way that you live your life every day, right? Like grow up mentally, like if you haven't, you know, I remember one of my mentors, very wealthy gentleman, he says something to me one time and I felt offended. But then I realize two days later, like, oh, he was right. He said, you know, Chris, when's the last time you read a book? And that was all he said to me. And I'm like thinking, Well, I called you for some advice and you're asking me like, something but I realized what he was saying, like, you're not going focus on the basics. So how do you how do you think you're going to learn that thing if you don't need the books to read? Mhm. So, so the knowledge you have is based on how old you know, that's not, that's not going to help. So that's, that's why I like, I take like growing up like real serious because I think growing is, it is a, is a maturity game. And you're going to grow, you're going to but it will mean if you choose to write, some people stop, but if you choose to I think it's, it can be pretty powerful Hmm. Go ahead. Love it. Always ask our our our guest come to the last segment the wrap up are an off script moment just whatever's on your heart give our audience that last thing that's on your heart that you feel led to leave us with. Hmm. Wow. Hmm. I would I would say to to the person that's, you know, listening to this or watching this, write your work or your home, you know, in the day or maybe your early bird, you catch up on on an unscripted podcast. I would say to you that I had had a moment probably two months ago, I was dropping my son off to school because he missed his bus, but I was dropping them off to school. And I drove past a cemetery and I pulled over and I had this moment and it was like, God, I was trying to get my attention. And I'm like, I don't ever pay this no attention. I see the doggone same cemetery every day. And I pulled over and I remember getting out of the car and it hit me like, like, like audibly I could hear for me, a lot of people send their dreams to the cemetery ahead of their schedule. They and they live the rest of their lives unfulfilled, not necessarily without purpose. You were given one when you got here. You just didn't choose to seek it out of maturity. Right. And thus, they're they're very they walk through life aimless and lethargic. Right. And I just I just remember having a moment, and I just, you know, I'll just say to anybody listening, like, if if I want you to know, like, your dreams don't have to go ahead of you and live in a cemetery before your date. You you have you're not stuck. You're not like don't keep saying things that reinforce a particular reality. You've got to start talking to yourself better. Like, you've got to look at that breaking news billboard ticker that you got it going across your brain that keeps spitting all of this negativity and you've got to start re-engineering your words because they're causing you to be where you are. And it might not feel good. The crazy part is you're in control of that part. A lot of times we will say to ourselves, I'm not you know, I just I don't control this whole control, that if you actually focus on the things that you actually do control, you'll find out the things that you can't control will not mean as much because you will have maximized what you can control. Most of us don't maximize our relationships. We don't maximize our our, our, our, our money. We don't maximize our attention. We don't maximize our faith. And so for anybody, like watching or listening is like, what would it feel like if you actually started maximizing your beliefs? What if you actually started telling like, think about what you thinking about like actually having a real conversation with yourself, writing down those negative thoughts and going at it because somebody else spoke to themselves like that. You would be upset with them or you try to encourage them. And one thing I realize is that too many of us invest in so many other people and very little ourselves to ourselves. And so I think in a world of make believe as much as we see and in a world of just walking by always saying everything is all right, I think we got to stop saying that I think we got to be honest with ourselves and say, nah, not everything is all right, but I'm I'm working on it, right? I'm getting better. I'm putting some things in place. Jon, I like your point tonight. Nah, I'm not going out this weekend, fellas. Y'all probably won't see me for a good month or so. The time I normally spend money I normally spend, which are about to sit here, and I'm going to just work on this webinar every weekend until I master this thing. Hey, I'm getting on a plane. No, I'm not going to hang out with you all that trip. Well, I normally spend two, $3,000 a jar. I'm taking that same money, and I'm going on a trip out here. To L.A. to go learn this thing, because somebody that I follow on line does this event, and I'm going to go learn I think is, you know, it's just when we speak to ourselves in certain ways, we reinforce our suggestive ideas that don't come from God. They come from the enemy. He can't force you to do anything. He can suggest a lot of stuff to you, though. And if you allow those suggestions to turn into things that you begin to eat on, well, then you'll have what you have. But you do have the power to, like, change what you're thinking about. And if you change your thoughts and you redirect your energy and you start speaking the things that aren't as though they were your hands will start making a move. It's kind of like right of you said, I want to I want a read model three Tesla. Guess what you're going to start seeing everywhere a read Model three Tesla Y because your brain will start being fixated on what you say and then your body will start getting your momentum towards what you want. So be mindful of like what we're saying to our sales. You know, get rid of some of this thinking, thinking and really start putting yourself in a better position and talk better to yourself because you deserve much more than then. Sometimes what we say to ourselves My God, Chris, I'm encouraged. I am encouraged. That was amazing. We want you to stay connected to Chris. You can do that several ways at the Christopher Williams on social media. That is a social media handle at the Christopher Williams. And also listen to the T WAC podcast. Now, what does the t w WAC, what is that stand for? What does that stuff? Yeah, that's the world. According to Chris I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay. I will definitely be tuning in to subscribe to forget that now. Right. Well, Will to Chris I love it. I love that. I love hurts on Iraq my very low desires go. Thank God I love it. They like to hear to us, to follow us, become a part of our patreon family for as little as $5 a month. patreon.com/unscriptedleadership ba. Follow us on our social media platforms @unscriptedleadership Check out our website unscripted-leadership.com, and of course our podcast is available on all podcast platforms. We say thank you again to Chris Williams for having this amazing conversation with us tonight on the secrets of building a successful side business. As always, we pray that you be the leader that God has called you to be. We are here to build bridges and not walls. Bridges connect and walls divide until next time. God bless you.