Empowering the US Military Veteran Community to Live Their Best Lives

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast. What's going on, guys? Welcome to the Warrior Soul Podcast. This is Chris Albert, And it's been about four years since I've started this show.

And I see that with a certain amount of astonishment. Because when I look at how I actually started this show, it was a bit crazy. I literally got the idea to have a podcast in my head one morning right after I woke up. I spent that day researching how to record on a computer. I spent that day figuring out how to get my show up on iTunes.

And I literally recorded the first episode without a microphone. In fact, I recorded the first 20 episodes without a microphone. That's why the audio is so awful on those episodes. And the reason why I say I'm astonished is because if you look out on iTunes, at a lot of the other podcasts that serve the veteran community, a lot of them are dead. A lot of them don't.

Right? I mean, they're not dead. Their shows, their episodes are are out there. And when you produce a podcast, one of the cool things is that it's there for life. But a lot of them aren't producing episodes anymore.

And that bothers me a lot. It bothers me a lot, but it also astonishes me because I can't believe I'm actually still doing this. I I can't believe the amazing quality of the guests we've been able to bring on here. I mean, everybody from Les Stroud, the the survivor man, to Chris Bell, to to Charlie Cina, who we've just recently had on, to Robert Greene, the author of the 48 laws of power and the laws of human nature, who's coming on next month, and so many others. Like, I am a 100% astonished by that.

And to some extent, I feel like I'm working my dream job right now. I think this is absolutely amazing. I'm so grateful. But as I mentioned, you know, when you look at those podcasts that aren't recording anymore, one of the mistakes I think they made early on is that they weren't able to adapt. Now, what do I mean by that?

Well, I think that a lot of organizations who get started here on the in the veteran community, whether it's a five zero one c three, or whether it's a business, right, a for profit business, one of the big mistakes they make is in not being able to adapt to the times. So a lot of these veteran oriented podcasts, well, they focused on on things like veteran suicide, they focused on on really important issues. Right? But the thing is this, if all you're doing is trying to keep veterans from killing themselves, then what is the alert? How are you gonna keep people listening?

How are you gonna get them to the point to where they're not just not killing themselves, but to where they're actually excelling? And that's what this show has always been about. One of the things I mentioned in the very first episode was that I was never going to mention veteran suicide or that I would hardly mention veteran suicide or or any of these other horrible things. Right? And there was big reason for that.

That's because I know the more you mentioned suicide, the more you mentioned that that horrible thing, the more you're telling a group of people who are very much like each other, who are who are members of this this group that is very tight knit, the more you're telling people that there's people like them taking their own lives, the more likely they are to take their own lives too. And if you don't believe me on that, read a book called influence by Robert Cialdini. Alright. I'll put a link for that up in the show notes. It discusses this very phenomena.

Right? It's it's it's important that we not just go out there and talk about the 22, that we not just go out there and talk about veteran suicide or veteran homelessness or all of these problems. It's important that we come out and we talk about veterans who are successful. It's important that we draw a road map to success for veterans who are looking to find their way. And it's important that we extend our purview beyond just the basic, okay, you're out of the military.

Let's figure out how to transition you into something that's not gonna make you miserable. Right? And that's what the show has always been about, about taking you up to that next level, taking you to the highest levels of performance, taking you to the pinnacles of your career. Why? Because I believe that veterans and and like minded people should be having a greater impact on this country.

And I've always said this. We talk a lot about the elections. We talk a lot about politics. If you wanna influence politics, guess what? Get out there and make more money.

Get out there and get more influence for yourself. Right? Get out there and be a leader. That's what you need to do. You can't just sit there and complain.

You can't just sit there and post memes. You need to get out there. You need to be making money. You need to be making wielding influence, and you need to to to become a leader. The more you do that, the bigger impact that you'll have, the bigger impact that this community will have.

So with all that said, what I wanna talk to you guys about right now is where we're going. Where is this show going? Where is it going to take you? And I think it's important to do this every now and then because, like I said, there's a lot of these veteran oriented podcasts out there that are kind of in the podcast graveyard. And I think that in order for an organization to grow, in order for it to continue to have impact, you need to establish your direction, and you need to tell people what direction you're going into.

So that's what the remainder of this show is gonna be about. So the first question we obviously wanna cover is who we serve. Who do we serve here on the Warrior Soul podcast? And as I said before, we seek to empower US military veterans to live their best lives, utilizing the tools, tactics, ideas, and strategies that we talk about on the show. And if you listen closely, I say US military veterans and anybody else willing to listen.

Now, why is that? Well, it's because anybody who's willing to listen to this show is gonna get something from it. Right? Whether they're a veteran or not. And I can't sit here and say, oh, I don't want if you're a non veteran, don't listen to the show, that'd be dumb.

Right? That'd be completely dumb. And the other aspect of that is that there aren't specific rules to success for veterans. Right? You have a particular skill set, leadership and other qualities that allow you to to know things that a lot of other types of people don't.

But there aren't different rules for success. They're all the same for all human beings. So this show is for US military veterans and anybody else willing to listen. I speak about it from the veterans perspective because that's the population that we're focused on. Right?

Now a little bit about me. I want you to understand that I'm not a very remarkable person at all. Alright? So and the reason why I say that isn't till I denigrate myself. It's because I hate with a lot of these shows the hero worship that develops.

And what I always want you to understand is that most of you are better people than I am. Most of you are are better better human beings than I am. Alright? And and that's a big part of this because if I'm not able to lose faith in myself, if I continue to have faith in myself, you should have you you should continue to have faith in yourself. Right?

So my story is this. I was a really average marine. Right? A really, really average marine. I didn't do anything remarkable.

I went to Iraq 2003, but didn't do much there at all. I was detached to IMCSF Bahrain, and then went up to Southern Iraq to run security missions, right, around the Euphrates River, the Qarabdala, the Shadda Al Arab, and didn't run into much of anything at all. Lots of hurry up and wait, really boring. Got to see a lot of that landscape out there and a lot of the shipwrecks that were there in Southern Iraq, which made for some cool pictures, but, you know, really wasn't much of anything. Right?

And so I'm never gonna come on here and pretend that I was some kind of combat hero, pretend that I was some kind of super marine or anything like that. I really wasn't. I served. I got an honorable discharge, and that was that. The thing is this.

I always wanted the Marine Corps to be one of the cool things I've done in my life, but not the only thing. And so I literally have always looked at it like that. For a while after I got out, I was even you know, I was kind of ashamed to call myself a veteran because I hadn't done much of anything. And and to be honest with you, one of the things that that sticks on my mind, one of the big things that sticks on my mind is this. I got out right after that deployment, And I got out thinking that the war was pretty much over the day my unit got back from Iraq.

We were at Lejeune, sitting there and looking on TV and Saddam Hussein had been captured. Right? So I'm like, great. Well, I needed some surgery on my ankle. I went and got that done, got out.

And about a year later, my guys went back. And that time, they went to Fallujah, and I wasn't with them. Right? And we lost guys. And when that happened, it it it took a big toll on me.

Right? Because I went from telling myself that, hey, you did what you could, timing wasn't good or anything like that, to telling myself, you're a piece of shit. You're a piece of shit because you let those guys go over go over there without you. You're a piece of shit because you got out. You're a piece of shit because you selfishly went and you pursued your own life while they continued to serve their country.

Right? And that was a story going on and going through my head. And the thing is, what I've come to discover is that that's not an uncommon story. Right? A lot of you feel like you didn't do enough.

A lot of you feel like you didn't give enough. And you know what? Here's the thing, guys. What I want you to understand is the impact that those types of thoughts are having on you. Right?

Because for years, what I did to myself, after getting out because I thought I was a piece of shit because I couldn't blend myself with the fact that that I thought I hadn't given enough. Well, what I discovered was, yeah, alright, I'm trying to sit there. I'm trying to denigrate myself, but really what that was all about was ego. Right? That was all about ego.

Because what you're really saying is that, oh, I never got my chance to to be a hero. I never got my chance to do this. I never got my chance to do that. Right? And it's all about you.

Right? And that's what was going on in my own psychology. It was about me, me, me, me, me. And what I should have been doing all those years that I wasted, you know, on alcohol, trying to pour myself into my own misery, was moving my life forward so that I could be in a better position to help people. Right?

And that's what I want you all to understand. Right? No matter what you're going through right now, you need to treat yourself like a friend. Right? You need to treat yourself like a friend, like somebody who you really do care about.

Because I'll tell you this, if you nobody is gonna benefit from you pounding yourself into the ground. Nobody. Absolutely nobody. Right? And if you're in a better position in life, a lot more people could benefit from it.

If you're making money, if you're in a good relationship, if you're psychologically well adjusted, right, if you've got a great family and you're you're a great father or mother or or or provider, then society benefits. If you're starting businesses, right, society benefits. But if you're pounding yourself into the ground because you hate yourself, guess what? You're not serving anymore. You're sucking.

You're sucking resources. You're you're you're you're sucking energy out of yourself. You're sucking energy out of the people around you. Right? And so that's one of the reasons why I do this show here is because I want you guys to come to a place in your minds where you start to see yourselves as friends rather than seeing yourselves as as, you know, somebody who shouldn't have survived, or seeing yourself as somebody who doesn't deserve to live, or seeing yourself as somebody who doesn't deserve to be happy.

You do deserve to be happy. You do deserve to be productive. You do deserve to to have all your dreams come true. But the thing is you've gotta work for them. Now my own history, again, like I said, after the Marine Corps, my life wasn't very remarkable either.

I've had a lot of failed businesses. Alright? So one of my most famous failures was as the owner of Metroflex Gym in Long Beach, California. And I was one of the cofounders of that gym. And that's the gym, for those of you who don't know, sort of like CT Fletcher and Mike Rashid came out of.

It's been films constantly. There's photographs all over the place. But, you know, we started that gym, and I did not financially plan well enough to be an owner of that gym. Right? I literally, we did not make money for the three years that I was an owner there.

I was living off of, $304,105 $100 a month. That was about it. Right? And it was a rough situation to be in. A really, really rough situation to be in.

And, you know, I've talked about this on too many episodes before to go into detail now, but I ended up, like, with nothing. After three years of pouring my heart, my soul, my everything into that gym, there fourteen, fifteen hours a day, training people, trying to run the place, trying to clean the bathrooms, doing the memberships, all this stuff, Getting up every morning at at 03:30AM to be there by four, leaving at, like, eight, 09:10PM at night. And after three years, I ended up divorced, living out of my car, and, you know, financially with nothing at all. And that's nobody's fault except for my own. Right?

And and at the time, I was seeing myself constantly as like a victim. Right? I was constantly seeing myself as like a victim. And it wasn't until I lost everything, and I looked in the mirror when I was able to tell myself, you know what? You're in this position because of you.

You're in this position because you didn't take action. You're in this position because you weren't stepping up for yourself, because you weren't planning ahead, because you made some really bad decisions. And once I realized that, it was like a million pounds came off of my shoulders because I started to understand something. If I put myself there in that position where I had absolutely nothing, I could also get myself out of it. Right?

I could also start making moves to put myself somewhere else. And that's what I did. So I didn't have the gym anymore, but I started an online training company. Alright? A friend gave me a computer, and I did that.

And I grinded away for for weeks, months until I could get myself into a rented room. And then I kept grinding until I could get myself into an apartment. Right? And that's the way it worked. And and that's how, you know, my, I guess, could say my online bit my online business career started.

Right? And so again, I'm I'm telling you all this because I want you to understand one thing. Right? Most of you are talented enough. Most of you are smart enough to get yourself through anything.

Right? If you're in a rough situation right now, take a step back, look at where you're at. Alright? Find some gratitude for where you're at because that's the thing that that pushed me when I was in that situation when I had nothing. It was being grateful for the fact that I actually had a car to sleep in.

Being grateful for the fact that I actually had friends who who really did care that I was, you know, down and out, right, and and friends who'd helped me out. And being grateful for the for the fact that, you know, I was where I was, but I was also in The United States Of America, where I could make anything possible. And so that's what I I wanted to do. I wanted to take advantage of those opportunities that I was given, and it was gratitude that showed me that. That's a big theme we cover here on the show.

You know, from there, I worked for a few years as a contractor with a company called London Real that is one of the biggest podcasts out of London, UK. And it was kind of a wayward way where that I became involved with them. But, essentially, I took a course from London Real. It was called their business accelerator, and I'd done really well. It was after a few years of having business experience.

So I spent three years as as the lead instructor of that course and their podcasting course and a whole host of other things. So when you see me out there on the Internet and other platforms and other venues talking about business education, That's the other aspect of of what I do as a business owner. I teach other people how to run businesses largely based off of all the screw ups I've ever done. Right? Largely based off of every way that I've ever screwed up and came back and figured out how to do it the proper way.

Well, I've been able to build a business off of that. And so, again, it goes back to that understanding. Every obstacle you're facing right now is an opportunity. An opportunity to learn something that could eventually pay off for you. Now enough about me, this show.

Where is it going? What are we gonna be doing? And what are you guys gonna get from this? Well, we are gonna continue to talk about topics like self empowerment, fitness, finances, relationships, tools for success. We're gonna be talking a lot about mental strength.

Right? And we're gonna be bringing on a lot of guests that you probably are familiar with from other platforms, but what I really want to get them to talk about are those very real moments in their lives when they were down and out, when they had doubts in their mind as to whether or not they were going to succeed, and how they came back from it. You know, we've had a lot of really great guests on so far, and I always want to encourage you to go back and check a lot of those out. I mean, everything from Chris Bell to Les Stroud to Doctor. Mark Gordon, who's been doing amazing work on traumatic brain injury in The US veteran community.

We've had on people like Michael Reagan, the son of former president Ronald Reagan. We've had on guys like Ryan Michler from The Order of Man, Doctor. Kirk Parsley, who is a sleep doctor, who can help you to get amazing sleep. Guys like Ben Greenfield, one of the most famous trainers in the world. And we're gonna continue to bring on that quality of guests.

I've got, like I said, over the next month, Robert Greene scheduled. I've got Nick Koumalatsos scheduled. I've got Ben not Ben Greenfield, Craig Ballantyne scheduled. We're gonna continue to bring on that quality of guests, and I want the quality of these guests to increase. Now that doesn't mean that they all have to be famous a list celebrities or anything like that.

I wanna bring people of value here. I'm constantly on LinkedIn searching for people who have got great ideas. But this is the thing, I get a lot of show requests. A lot of people are requesting to come on to the show. And a lot of you guys, when you're making your request, what you're not doing is you're not showing me what's gonna be different.

So when I'm deciding to bring somebody on the show, what I really wanna see is a big idea. Right? A big idea that can lead our audience to begin implementing whatever it is that you're talking about, whatever that idea states, into their lives directly after the show in a way that's gonna positively impact them. Alright? That's what I look for when I'm bringing people onto the show.

It's it's really important. And if I don't respond to you, it's not because I think I'm better than you. It's not because I think that, you know, you suck or anything like that. It's because I get a lot of requests. I'm only one person.

I don't have a giant staff working on this show. So it might take me a while to respond to. And I also want you to understand that just the act of starting an organization or a five zero one c three or anything like that is not going to have me bring you on to the show. Like, it's just there's there's thousands of veterans five zero one c threes out there. Thousands of veteran charities.

One of the problems is that these charities aren't working together. Right? And because they're not working together, we actually see a lot of infighting between charitable organizations. And that's something that bothers me a lot about this community. We all wanna start our own thing, but we don't want to work for the larger goal.

And we're not working together for the larger goal. And so instead, it becomes, alright, I wanna do something for the glory of my organization or my tribe within this community, and that's not good. That's not good. We need to become more organized. We need to start working together.

Right? If if you're reaching across and you're working with multiple groups of people on a national level and you're introducing things that are literally and and provably changing people's lives, then that's when I wanna talk to you. Alright? But if you've got a new organization that hasn't done much yet, I'm sorry, guys, but I just can't I don't have the time. I don't have the bandwidth.

I don't have a lot going on here. I'm gonna try and figure out a way to create a platform on the site to promote organizations like this, maybe a list of links. But for the show itself, it's it's just not doable right now. Alright? And I'm sorry if that makes people mad, but this is the thing.

Our audience, I need to think about them. And they don't wanna just consistently hear people coming on to talk about their organization and themselves. Right? That's that's just not how this goes. We're we're here to talk about ideas that are gonna help this community to move forward.

Alright? As far as the content of the show and and the difference, I try to make things as as entertaining as possible. But you probably noticed that we're also a bit more serious than a lot of the other veterans podcasts out there. And there's a big reason behind that, and that's this. I don't have the talent or the the skills that a Matt Best or a Donny O'Malley has.

Right? I'm not a comedian. I those guys are geniuses. Matt Best is a genius. Donny O'Malley is a genius.

He might not appear to be a genius, but they're geniuses. And they're amazing business owners. They're doing amazing things and amazing work. I take nothing away from them. The fact is I can't be them.

I can't bring that kind of humor to the table. I can't bring that quality of film to the table right now with my resources. Someday, I will be. When we have a staff, when we have our own studio, which I'll talk about in a second, we will bring that kind of quality. But right now, there's no way that I could do that.

So what I focus on here is self empowerment. Right? Being able to become a better version of yourself. And I know they do that too, but they do it in a different way that's more about entertaining. It's got more of that dark humor that we see here in the veteran community that we love so much, and that's awesome.

I'm just a very different person who doesn't have that skill set at this current moment in time. And so I'm utilizing the resources that I do have available to me. And that is connections to people who are a lot smarter than I am, who can bring benefits to you, as well as information that can help you to move forward in your life, whether it be through fitness, whether it be through business, whether it be through personal empowerment or success. Alright? And so that's why I do what we do on this show as opposed to some of the other things.

As far as other resources we bring to the table, and I want you to understand that the podcast is not the only resource that we bring here. K. So what do we've got what do we have? Well, we have the Warrior Soul Agoge YouTube channel. Right?

That channel is a spin off of my previous fitness YouTube channel. And when you go on to that channel, you'll find all the episodes from the podcast there. In addition, you'll find a basic encyclopedia talking about fitness and nutrition. Right? Remember, I spent years as a top trainer, as a nutrition coach for some amazing athletes, and I learned a lot from that.

And that's what we bring to the table over there on that YouTube channel. There's playlists. There's a lot of of videos about how to eat to perform, how to train to perform, and I'm always open to answering any of your questions on that if you want me to. On the Warrior Soul Agoge site, right, that's up at www.warriorsoulagoge.com. Again, we have all these episodes.

We have our daily fitness diary. That's where I'm posting my own workouts, I'm posting my own nutrition. You could follow along on that. I don't try to impose workouts on people because I think it's insane to think that you're gonna put out a cookie cutter workout for thousands of people, but what we do in our private Facebook group there is encourage you to post your own workouts. So I could take a look at them and we can chime in and help each other on what they should include, what they should get rid of, what types of things they can do to get results a little bit quicker.

Alright? Aside from all that, we're also introducing a a book list, a reading list for the Warrior Soul Agoge community. Alright? And what that is gonna be, it's gonna be a set of base works that I think you could benefit from. I've got two up there right now.

I'm planning on adding another book every week. We're gonna have Marcus Aurelius' Meditations up there in a bit. We're gonna be having Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power and Laws of Human Nature up there. We're gonna have a bunch of other books that I think that you could benefit from moving forward in life, in business, in health, and in relationships. We'll have complete reviews there, what you're gonna learn from them, links to the books, and my own kind of analysis of what you need to take away.

Alright? Aside from that, what we're also going to be doing is creating a society, and it's going to be called the Obituary Society. And the goal of that society is going to be able to is gonna be to create a group of men who are focused on helping each other to live the most epic lives possible, worthy of the most epic obituary ever written. Right? And I've been thinking about that project for a while.

I'm finally putting it into motion, and that project should be out and available to you at some point over the next month. I'm really looking forward to putting that out there to the world and seeing how I can help you guys in other ways to to push forward with your lives and do the amazing things that you wanna do with your time left here on this earth. Now as far as the future goes, what's the future gonna look like? Well, I'll tell you guys that at some point in the next year, I am trying to make a move from California to the Las Vegas Henderson area in Nevada for a number of different reasons. But primarily, what I'd like to do is to create a studio slash destination out there in Vegas.

And what that would be is a facility where we can record, or we can actually host people for the show, guests for the show, but also a destination for our community. A destination where our community could come to train, where our community can come to learn, and where our community can come to socialize. I want to have a full gym in there. I want to have a a full range in there, a shooting range. I want to have a a lounge in there where we can sit back, we can talk, have a drink, smoke cigars, have a coffee, host events, host speakers, host conferences, and things like that.

And that's a huge project. I don't know when that project will come to fruition, but I plan on making the initial move out to Vegas at some point in the next year. I also want to have a full retail outlet for Warrior Soul gear at some point. So I think it's it's it's a dream right now, but it's a dream that I really wanna work on. So big things, I think, coming up in the future for this show.

I wanna thank you guys for listening to this today. Again, this is me kind of putting a compass to what we're doing here, talking about where we've been, where we're going, what you're gonna get from the show, why this show exists, and talking a bit and dreaming about the future with you guys. I I really appreciate all of you who stuck by this through the years. I know that I always I haven't always done the best job. And I'm not saying that to be self deprecating.

I know I haven't always done the best job here as the host. And what I promise you is that I'm gonna continue to work to improve. I'm gonna continue to work to improve the quality of the show. I'm gonna continue to work to improve the quality of the guests, and I'm gonna continue to work to improve everything because I believe that we can have an amazing impact on this community and that this community is primed to have a major impact on this country. So I hope you guys are fired up.

Listen, if you're not subscribed to the Warrior Soul podcast yet on iTunes, please make sure you get subscribed. Also, head over to iTunes and write us a five star rating and review if you like the show. Also, make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel. Like I said, there is an encyclopedic amount of fitness content up on the channel as well as other content about success. I also publish all of the episodes for this podcast on the channel.

So if you prefer YouTube as a listening platform, those shows are there. And the channel's name is the Warrior Soul Agoge. For everything else, make sure you're heading over to our website. We've got tons and tons of resources up there. Like I said, that's at www.warriorsoulagoge.com.

And if you wanna join our private Facebook group where I'm putting workouts out every single day, my own workouts, you can follow my diet routine. That I'll put a link to that up on the show notes for this episode. Beyond that, I wanna say how you can support this show. Number one, you can go and visit our sponsor, the amazing F Bomb Nutrition. They make delicious macadamia nut butters.

They're absolutely awesome. They packed them with these these little packages with macadamia nut butter, with chocolate, with sea salt. They're portable. You can carry them anywhere with you, and there's no sugar in them at all. You can head over to www.dropanfbomb.com.

Use the code Warrior Soul at checkout, and you'll get 20% off your first order. In addition to that, you can go and visit our store over at warriorsoul.shop. That's where we have our clothing. That's how we started with making awesome T shirts. And we've got a whole skivvy series, green skivvy shirts.

We've got an awesome MOS series that you can take a look at, and you can get yourself an awesome high quality t shirt while supporting the show as well. In addition to that, if you take supplements, alright, and you're looking for really good high quality supplements, well, I've gotten the show affiliated with 1st Phorm. I've got a lot of respect for Andy Frisella, the CEO over there, and we signed up for the Legionnaire program. They've got an awesome whey protein isolate. It's one of the only whey protein isolates that doesn't give me bubble guts.

It's really great for recovery. It's called Phormula-1, and it is absolutely delicious. I highly suggest you check that out. I also suggest you check out their Micro Factor and Opti-Greens. And if you're interested in getting those awesome supplements for yourself while supporting the show, head over to www.1stphorm.

That's the number one stphorm.com/chrisalbert, chrisalbert, and order your supplements from there, and you will be supporting yourself while supporting this show. Once again, guys, I wanna thank you so much. We'll be back at you later on this week with another awesome episode. Now get out there and live your best lives while you can.