Warrior Notes: How to Find Your Purpose

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

The Warrior Soul podcast is written, produced, and edited by me, Albert. Our mission is to provide tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to US military veterans and anybody else willing to listen to help them to navigate toward living their absolute best lives. If you find these episodes helpful, please share them out with somebody that you know of that can use them. And if you really like the podcast, please also head over to iTunes and write us a written rating and review. It really helps us to spread word about the show, and it really helps to get these tools in the hands of others who really need them.

This podcast is sponsored by f bomb nutrition. They make awesome delicious packets of macadamia nut butters. They mix them up with chocolate, with sea salt, with pecan butter. They're absolutely delicious, and they also have a number of other fat fueled snacks, like their meat sticks and their cheese crisps. They're amazing people who are sending boxes of this stuff out to the troops on the front lines, and they're offering 20% off to our listeners on their first orders.

If you head over to www.dropanfbomb.com and use the code Warrior Soul at checkout, you'll get 20% off of that first order. And I'm gonna keep the announcements short and sweet today. You can stick around to the end. I got a really special announcement about a brotherhood that we're creating here at Warrior Soul. So hope you enjoy this episode.

I hope you get a lot out of it. And without delay, let's get into it.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. 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.

You know, I hear a lot of people out there who talk about trying to find their purpose in life, and it's as if somebody they're waiting for somebody to come along and say, hey. Here's your purpose. Go do big things. And I meet so many young people who are just waiting. They're waiting to get that little piece of paper that says they have a degree, or they're waiting for approval from their parents, or they're waiting for somebody to tell them to do something.

Well, in this episode, I'm gonna talk to you about why you need to go out there and you need to just do things if you wanna find your purpose. Before we get into that conversation, I wanna talk to you about a couple of things. Number one, this is the Warrior Soul podcast, and we empower US military veterans to live their absolute best lives. We produce three shows a week, and they're comprised of interviews with people who are a lot smarter than I am. I just had mister Robert Greene, the author of The 48 Laws of Power and The Laws of Human Nature on the show.

And if you haven't had a chance to listen to that, definitely go and listen to that interview. It's an outstanding interview. But beyond that, the big mission here is to help US military veterans and anybody who's willing to listen to live their best lives. And the reason we do this is because over the past decade and a half, we've seen so many things going on in the veteran community as far as and I'm talking about negative things like high suicide rates, high rates of veteran homelessness, high rates of chronic disease. You know, twenty five percent of the veterans entering the VA system has full blown diabetes, and that's across all ages.

And what we try to do here is we try to fill a hole that I think is very apparent in the types of media that veterans consume. And that is that there's a lot of entertainment out there. There's a lot of people talking about problems, but there's very few people delivering actionable solutions. Solutions that you could take advantage of right here, right now, starting today. So that's what we're about.

All that we ask for in return to grow this movement is that you go and you share these episodes out with people, that you let people know that we exist, and if possible, that you head over to iTunes and you write us a written rating and review. And that's where I'll stop. At the end, I'm gonna give you a few more announcements, but let's get into this important material for today. As I mentioned before, I just had Robert Greene on the show, you know, New York Times bestselling author, one of the best known authors out there. His books are read by everybody from Fortune 500 executives to military strategists to, hit really well known hip hop artists.

And the thing about Robert that really hit home with me is that if you look at his life, he didn't write his first book until the age of 38. It didn't get published until he was 38, and he really didn't figure out what he was meant to do until his late thirties. And prior to that, he'd had upwards of 80 different jobs, and I think he'd worked in everything from construction to journalism to private investigation. He worked in Hollywood for a while and basically drifted around. And during that time, he was extraordinarily unhappy.

But one of the things he told me was this, and that is that everything he'd gone through up till that point where he got the deal for his first book, The 48 Laws of Power, it had prepared him to be able to do the work that he's doing now, the work that is defining his life. And I wanna emphasize this. A lot of people, they're running around. They're looking for their purposes. But the fact is this.

If you're living a life right now that's been completely dictated to you by your parents, by society, by your teachers, by your professors. If you thought that you're gonna go and you're gonna take this path and and, you know, get out of the military, go get a four year degree, and then jump into a life. Well, here's the thing. That's probably a big reason why you feel like you've lost your purpose. And that reason is because you haven't lived life yet on your terms.

You haven't gone out there and done things that you truly want to do. And so my message to you guys this week is this. If you're in your early twenties and you're just getting out of the military, don't be in such a rush to settle down. I I I I fully believe that you do need to get to work, that you do need to to go out there and you need to do things that are gonna develop yourself, that are gonna develop skills that you can take home, skills that you can earn money from. But I'll say this.

I think one of the big reasons why we see so many unhappy veterans after they get out of the military, and so many unhappy people, because I know a lot of civilians listen to this show, is because they get out, and then they think they have to go and do all of the things that society expects from them. You know, going to college, getting that degree, going into some corporate job, or or going into some nine to five job that they're absolutely going to hate. And what I would say is this, you're still young. You're still young. And I don't care if you're 22.

I don't care if you're 35. You were still young. And if you're not married, you're not settled down yet, one of the things you have to consider is this. This is your time to be able to take risks, to take chances. This is your time to go explore.

If you have an interest in something that nobody thought you should ever try, well, you should go and try that thing out. If you want to open up a business, but you were always scared to because you're afraid you're gonna fail, well, you should go and try and open up that business. You don't need an MBA. You don't need a business degree. What you need is a vision for what you want to do, and you need to not be afraid that you're gonna fall on your face.

Because what I want you to understand is that if you fall on your face, that's a good thing. That's something you're gonna learn from. I'm going give you an example here. When I got out of the military, I went back to school because my family wanted me to go to school. So I ended up doing my master's degree up at the University of Connecticut, and then I went and applied for my PhD and got in at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

And what I'd say is this, it took me about four years to realize this, but while I was working on my doctoral and dissertation, I realized that the reason I was there working on my doctoral dissertation wasn't because it was always something that I dreamed about. It was because it was something that I'd promised my relatives, my mom, my great uncle, my grandparents, and it was something they all wanted for me. And you have to understand that if it's not something that you truly want to do, that's gonna catch up with you, and it did with me. Partway through writing that dissertation, I realized that I was extraordinarily unhappy doing that work. It was extremely lonely.

I wasn't working with people. I wasn't working in a team, and I wasn't providing any real value for the world. Academic work is like that. You know, at best, I'd probably be published in some obscure journal, and maybe 10 people would read the journal article. And then I would move ahead based off of whether they gave me a citation or not.

And at the end of the day, I found that enormously discouraging. So I wanted to do something with greater impact, and I'd always wanted to open up a business. I'd been personal training on the side up at, the the corporate gym there in Santa Barbara, and, you know, I really felt like I could get I could do fitness as a career. And so what I did was I took the money I had saved up, which wasn't a lot, and myself and a good friend of mine, Eddie Avakoff, we went and we started Metroflex Gym Long Beach. Now I have to say that starting that gym with no business experience, nothing at all, knowledge wise as to how to run a business like that, it was extremely difficult.

When we first opened up, I knew nothing about marketing. So we had this facility, which was kinda like a rudimentary facility at the time. We'd stuck a bunch of equipment into a warehouse, basically. And, you know, at first there were crickets. No one was showing up.

We weren't earning a lot of money. But what we did was we put our noses to the grindstone. I'd sleep at the gym a lot of the time. I was working constantly. And we turned that gym into a pretty big success.

And we got published in Muscle and Fitness Magazine. We got plush published in Flex Magazine. We had a lot of superstars coming out of that gym like CT Fletcher, like Mike Rashid. And, you know, the story isn't really a happy ending. I eventually got forced out of ownership because of my own financial struggles.

But what I want you to understand is this. I got enormous value from that experience. I fell flat on my face, but I learned about marketing. I learned about running a brick and mortar business. I learned about customer service.

I learned about facilities upkeep. I've learned about accounting. And through all of that, that was basically my MBA, that experience I got. And I learned things there that I could never have learned in a classroom setting. And when I finally ended up getting forced out of ownership and I had nothing and I was living out of my car, well, the skills that I learned there, they helped me to pull myself out of that situation fairly quickly.

I started my online training business, and within a month or two, I was actually earning really good money, by putting my message out there in a very clear manner, by providing a product that people actually wanted, and by providing outstanding customer service to my clients who came to me. And I would not have learned about any of that had I not gone through that experience at Metroflex Gym. I also just finished this memoir by by general Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos. One of the things he talks about was the fact that the when he was asked to become secretary of defense, the enormity of the task in front of him was such that he never thought he would be in a job like that. But through his trials, through his experience in the Marine Corps, through his successes, and through especially his failures, he felt like he had the education necessary to make him successful in that position.

Jim Mattis went out there, and he learned through experience. Now, how am I translating this back to you guys? Well, for those of you who are considering getting out of the military, those of you who just got out of the military, what I would say is this. Don't be afraid to go out there into the real world and try something. You're gonna have the rest of your life to settle down.

You'll have the rest of your life to sit behind a desk. You'll have the rest of your life to be comfortable. But when you're young, it's your time to be uncomfortable. You don't have to live on a massive salary. You don't have you don't need tons of money.

You don't need a fancy car. You don't need gourmet food. What you need is to be learning, and the best way of learning is to have experience. And that means going out there and putting yourself to the test. And if you fail, awesome.

You're gonna learn something from it. You're gonna learn something that you can apply to your future. Alright? Like I said, I would not be here running this podcast. I would not have Warrior Soul as a brand.

I would not have had my personal training business had I not gone out there and fall flat on my face with Metroflex Gym. Now for those of you who are a little bit older, we can translate this concept. If you're already married, if you're already settled down, if you've if you've got kids and you've got responsibilities, what I would say is this, think about problems that you can solve from where you are. Maybe it's something in your place of work. You see something that's not working for your boss, that's not working for your company.

And maybe you can take the initiative and create a plan to change that, and then begin implementing the plan. Maybe just run a little experiment and present the results to your boss. Right? So many people are scared to do this. So many people are scared to take that kind of initiative.

And I'll tell you, if you've got a good boss, nine times out of 10, that boss is gonna really appreciate what you've done. Right? Now a lot of people get scared. Okay. The boss is gonna try to take credit for this, this, that.

So what? At least you'll have learned something from the experience. You'll have learned how to solve a problem in what you're doing. If you don't wanna do that at work, one thing you could do, and this is one of the things about today's day and age, we live in a time and place where you could start a business with absolutely nothing or near nothing. You just need a few web assets.

You might need some social media accounts and an email inbox. And what you should do is you figure out problems you could solve where you are. Right? Think about things that that bother you, things that make you a little bit angry. Maybe something's really inconvenient. Right? Maybe you you don't like the way mailboxes open, and you design this awesome mailbox. And I'm just using that as a stupid example, but but figure out something in your own life that makes you a little bit angry.

Alright? Maybe you're not a product person. Maybe you're more of a of a service person like me. Think about things that are that people are going through that make you a little bit angry, that bother you a little bit, and start a movement around it. You know, what I've done here at Warrior Soul is not something that can't be translated to other things.

You could start your own movement. You could start your own podcast. You can go out there, and you could leave your mark on this world. But the big thing is that you have to be to a point where you're not scared of failure. You're not scared of failing.

You're not scared of falling flat on your face. And the reality is that if you're in that position where you you need to have some security, well, there's very little financial risk in just setting up an online business and trying to get a message out there to the world. It's pretty much free. You don't need fancy Facebook ads or anything like that. And, you know, at the end of the day, these are some of the issues I think that we all need to think about in our heads.

If The US military veteran community and the rest of the awesome civilians who listen to this podcast truly want to change this country for the better. What we need to do is we need to all step up to be able to take a bigger role in leadership, a bigger role in getting our messages out there. That's not gonna occur just by complaining on social media. We all need to go out there, and we need to actually do things. We need to actually take action.

We need to actually impact others and show this world what we're truly capable of. Now I hope that makes sense to all of you guys. If you have any questions, if you've got your own comments, let me know. Send me an email at chris@warriorsoulagoge.com or DM me on Instagram or, you know, bring something up on our Instagram page. Let's talk about this stuff.

One place that we are currently talking about these issues and truly taking action is in the Warrior's Obituary Society. This is a group that I created a couple of months ago after losing a couple of really good friends tragically. I lost two people this year for various reasons. One, at the age of 39 due to a brain aneurysm. He left behind some beautiful kids, a beautiful wife, and I was enormously saddened by this.

And one of the things I told myself was this, you know, we don't have forever. We're not gonna live forever. You know, I could die tomorrow. You could die tomorrow. But the fact of the matter is, a hundred years from now, we're definitely all gonna be dead.

And so we have to understand that the time here is so limited that we need to take advantage of this life while we can, and that's what the Warrior's Obituary Society is about. It's about empowering men to live epic lives worthy of epic obituaries. And what we're doing in that group right now, all new members are taken through an eight week development program. That's where we focus on building your vision, on making sure that we have goals in place, but not just looking at those goals, actually creating processes to get there. That's where we're also looking at fitness, personal finance, business, looking at people's careers, seeing how we could push our brothers forward.

And then once our members get through that eight week development program, they take their seat as a full member in the society. They're setting goals, setting key performance indicators to get to those goals, and their brothers are holding them accountable to taking action on those goals each week. Each week, we have a live call, and that's where we get together as a group. And those calls are centered both on helping our full members get to their goals and also helping our new candidates get through that development program and getting their lives in order so they can get to those goals. We have a full platform that acts as a forum for discussion, and I keep everything off of social media.

I'm not confident about privacy of platforms like Facebook and other group platforms that are out there. So what we do instead is we have a Slack workspace that we work off of. That's private. It's encrypted. We don't have anybody peering over our shoulders, and then we talk on a walkie talkie app each day to try and encourage try and encourage each other.

So, you know, what I wanna say here is that I've taken everything I've learned over my years from being an entrepreneur, from being a business consultant, from guiding people through my former job over at London Real where I was a business instructor, and I've applied it to this group. And there's enormous value here, but it is not for a hefty price. I've kept the price low because I want our brothers in the veteran community to be able to take part. And you don't have to be a veteran to take part. We have a good mix of veterans, military, and civilians in the group that are all centered around our values.

And so if you're interested in that, let me know. You can send me an email at chris@warriorsoulagoge.com. That's chris at warrior soul a g o g e dot com, or you can DM me over on the Warrior Soul Agoge account on Instagram. With that, guys, I wanna thank you so much for listening. Go out there, take some risks, take action in your lives, and live your best lives while you can.

I'll be at back at you later on this week with another awesome episode on Friday. And then next week, we will be talking to a couple of fitness entrepreneurs who started their business from scratch in Los Angeles so you guys can see how they did it, what they ran into, what issues they ran into, and how you can follow their lead in setting up your own online business. Talk to you guys soon, and I am out.