Chandler is a visionary business leader with high emotional intelligence and a rare mix of strategic, technology, marketing, sales, and expertise combined with a true talent for devising and applying new ideas and innovation to propel companies to build competitive advantage.
- CEO Hack: Laser-focus on one thing you are good at
- CEO Nugget: (1) Leverage what I'm good at to be really good at it (2) Have a solid team and be the visionary
- CEO Defined: Visionary of the group, hero of the story and the person who can inspire/prompt action
Website: https://www.chanslogic.com/
Facebook: Facebook.com/ChansLogic
Instagram: Instagram.com/chandler_saf
Full Interview
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Transcription
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INTRO 0:02
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
Gresham Harkless 0:30
Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today at Chandler Walker of Culture of Care and Stone Age Fuel. Chandler it's awesome to have you on the show.
Chandler Walker 0:40
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to your audience. And hopefully, they have a good time and their eyes don't glaze over and they don't fall asleep.
Gresham Harkless 0:47
If they do, it'll be largely because of me not because of you because you're doing some awesome things. So I wanted to read a little bit more about Chandler so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Chandler is a visionary business leader with high emotional intelligence and a rare mix of strategic technology, marketing, sales, and expertise combined with a true talent for devising and applying new ideas and innovation to propel companies to build competitive advantages. Chandler, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
Chandler Walker 1:16
I'm excited. Let's do this.
Gresham Harkless 1:17
Let's do it. So the first question I had was the hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?
Chandler Walker 1:25
Yeah, so my story goes way back. I remember being a kid and my dad had a business for years, he still has the business, I think it's been around since the 80s. So it's still flourishing and running, he would say, hey, Chandler, let's get up at six o'clock in the morning, and I'll get you a doughnut and some orange juice, and we're gonna go to a customer's house. And so we do that all the time. And the only reason I enjoyed it was because I got that doughnut and orange juice. But also I got, I got to watch him interacting with customers and watching him do his business and watch how he was selling people and talking and just moving forward.
And I thought it was pretty neat. And as I got older, I worked for him for a few summers. And I realized he was a contractor business, I realized that I definitely did not want to do hard labor for a living after working with him for a few summers. But he always told me, Hey, Chandler, don't open your own business, go work for the post office, get a retirement, and just don't worry about anything. And so I did the exact opposite of what he said and opened my own business and kind of progressed into where I was today. And it kind of started off en route to where I went to college. And I was kind of focused on business.
But I switched to biochemistry at some point and decided that maybe I would go through the med school route. I was like, Maybe I should pursue something where it's, quote-unquote, stable. And so I got kind of through it, I was in my internship and precepting a lot. And I realized that one of the things that I was doing in this profession at that point was providing medication that people who didn't necessarily want to make a lifestyle change.
And so at that point, I decided that I needed to start my own thing, create my own entity where I could help people remove chronic pain, and build the best version of who they are, without using medication and without being just stuck and without having to go into pain management. And that's how Stone Age Fuel was born, which is our original first business. And so I just started a blog. And it was what we thought from a biochemical perspective and what the industry was perpetrating. So what was the health and wellness industry trying to sell you and what actually made sense and what was actually true. And so we got a big following. We got people all over the world inviting us to go talk and give us we call it our fluff to tough healthy eating presentation. And so we taught everybody how to turn their fluff into the tough. And eventually, we turn that into a brick-and-mortar business.
And then eventually we turn that again into an online-based business. And then I realized at some point that after I came on with a consulting agency, once we started getting really good at Stonyfield, we started helping other businesses getting get their strategic action plan in order to get their unique selling proposition set up, I realized that there was one more thing that was holding people back. And it was the mental health aspect. So people came into this already defeated, already broken and already convincing themselves that they couldn't move forward.
And so at that point, I realized that we had to start something where we could help people get past their barriers or triggers their problems, and their issues. So they could make the decision to build the best version of who they are and to build the best version and remove Chronic pain. And that's when Culture of Care was born. So we created an eight-week curriculum based on Cognitive Behavior Therapy. So and I have a clinical psychologist who built it with me and that takes people from the point of I'm stuck I don't know who I am, I don't know how to get past these I have these childhood issues that I can't get over to now I feel good about myself, I'm comfortable with my thoughts and emotions and I'm ready to take it to the next level.
Gresham Harkless 4:32
Nice I absolutely love that and appreciate that especially from the foundation of you know, going out getting your doughnut and orange juice with your dad to what you're building now because a lot of times you know, those foundational skills whether you know it or not, even though your dad said, you know, go get a job at the post office, he saw you, You saw him I should say and I'm sure that it basically laid a foundation for what you wanted to do and now you know you're doing all these kind of awesome things to kind of help out the clients and in do you find that is where, you know, Cultural of Care came about where that kind of mindset was so strong that it can kind of direct person, you know, either left or right, depending on what those foundational principles were.
Chandler Walker 5:11
Yeah, I find, and growing up, my mother was Bipolar. So I got to experience mental health from a childhood standpoint. And so as I progressed, I didn't understand it until I got deeper into working with actual people inside the gym under the environment. But it kind of came back to where I originally was with my mother, it's people can't move forward if they don't feel good enough to move forward. And it's not as simple as saying, you know, brush it off, it's not as simple as saying, hey, you just got to think happy thoughts smile, though, it doesn't work that way. So you have to say, Okay, what's going on in your life. Why do you feel this way. Think back to your past and what was going on in your childhood. I want you to write in a journal. And let's start understanding what's going on.
And why do we have these thoughts and why we're thinking, so why have we defeated ourselves before we've even started. And that's when the mindset piece came into play. It wasn't, we didn't want to come into this being like the standard life coach, we wanted to come into this and create a whole health and wellness aspect into our business. So it was eventually morphed into the five pillars of optimal wellness, which is mental health, and social health, because right now, people are unbelievably lonely, and you wouldn't understand it, and you people would probably even believe it. But I would say 50% of the population is incredibly lonely, but they don't feel good enough about talking about it.
The third one is nutrition, or gut health, and then fitness. And finally sleep. And so I found that once we were able to capitalize on these five pillars of optimal wellness, with mental health being the first, then into social health, and then into the actual nutrition and fitness and sleep components we could make help people make real change and help people not defeat themselves and help people not quit on themselves.
Gresham Harkless 6:43
Yeah, and I love that just because a lot of times, you know, when you're thinking about your health or your holistic health, especially, you're thinking okay, let me go to the gym. Let me do more situps let me you know, not eat that doughnut or whatever it is. But understanding that those are five different pillars, that all play a part in your overall health is something that I think a lot of people forget.
Chandler Walker 7:02
Yeah, exactly. And we did until maybe five years ago, it was four parts, even talk about it, oh, I can't talk about the fact that I have maybe not thinking good about myself, or my thoughts aren't where they should be, or I'm just I just don't know where to go. And I'm stuck. And so everybody learned to just suck it up and not talk about it. But it creates a Cataclysmic Cascade of problems across the board over the course of your life, if you never actually talk about it, or learn to deal with or handle those feelings.
Gresham Harkless 7:27
Yeah, absolutely. So I appreciate you, you know, for dedicating your time and energy to help, you know, bring awareness to that, but also to help out people as well. So would you consider that you might have already touched on this to be like your secret sauce? What do you feel kind of is your unique selling proposition for your organization, even for your businesses?
Chandler Walker 7:45
Yeah, for our businesses, we have the five pillars, and the secret sauce and the USP behind it would be, we help people remove anxiety and depression to kickstart their stealth career life. And we help people remove Chronic pain so that they can live life be mobile, and finally be free again. So it ties both back into the five pillars, it's removed the mental aspects and removed the physical aspects that are holding us back. And we can finally live optimally and happily again, and you can be 90 years old, and running next to your grandkids not being 90 years old and being pushed in a wheelchair in front of them. And that's what people ultimately want. They want to age well and live well and feel well.
Gresham Harkless 8:20
Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like and correct me if I'm wrong, a lot of that goes back to your conditioning the mindset as well, too. Because a lot of times, you have to understand that that is a reality that you can be 90 and do that. Because I think a lot of times, your reality becomes whatever you see. And if you don't see that, or you haven't seen that sometimes you don't think that that's possible. But you're saying that that is definitely possible.
Chandler Walker 8:42
Yeah, absolutely. And it's getting over those mindsets, and this works with business owners as well, everybody's stuck. But everybody doesn't understand that typically, you've already defeated yourself. And we've already decided that we can't take that step forward. We can't progress because of something that's happened in our past that's instilled fear in us and the inability to move forward.
Gresham Harkless 9:00
Yeah, absolutely. And I definitely think that there is a difference between you know, the mindset and the mental health as you kind of touched on to so understanding, which is, probably definitely something to know.
Chandler Walker 9:10
Exactly. You have to know when what feelings am I experiencing. Am I stuck. Okay, is this producing anxiety. Okay, so now I need to figure out how to get over this. Am I stuck. Do I feel down. Do I not feel good. Do I not want to get out of bed, okay, now we might be creeping into depression. So we can really pinpoint and understand and create an optimal pathway for getting someone to be better and better could be removing depression, it could be removing anxiety, it could be my mindset is kind of stuck. And I need to take it to the next level. So it might be removing a simple block that someone has.
Gresham Harkless 9:39
Right, exactly. So I definitely appreciate you for putting time and effort into helping people out with that. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.
Chandler Walker 9:58
Yeah, my biggest one I think that's really hit me in the last couple of years is being laser focused on one thing, not to thing. And I think as CEOs, we tend to start getting focused, you see shiny things, it's shiny thing syndrome. I wanted to do this, and this and I'm doing 17 things on average and then they start to fall apart one at a time. I think what you have to do is you have to say, Okay, here's my list of things that I'm doing. Number one through 10, boom, this fulfills me at my core. Yes. Okay. Is this putting me in a place to where I'm financially. Yes. Okay, cool, give it a score.
And then if both of those come into play, and you have yeses, then you can keep doing it. But if you say, Okay, this doesn't really bring me to where I want to be, I just thought it would be something cool to pursue, you probably should get rid of it. And so I think the idea is, find one or two things that you're unreasonably good at, and excel and push as hard as you can to be as good as possible at that and avoid at all costs, being focused on 17 different things, because we're going to be a lot better if we're focused on one simple task or two simple tasks, then we are focused on million and one things I do to organize this is all set up as like a six-week sprint.
So this is what I'm focusing on for these six weeks exclusively. At the end of the six weeks, I look at okay, do I need to focus on this again. Okay, let's keep pursuing this. Okay, we are we got this down. Now let's pick up something else. And then after, the six weeks, we give ourselves about a two-week break, because you need a brain break. If you don't get a brain break, you lose your creativity and ability to focus and move forward. And so we go sort of on these eight-week cycles, six weeks working and two weeks off, and it puts us in a really good place to actually organize ourselves and be incredibly good at what we do moving forward.
Gresham Harkless 11:31
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that, that laser focus and even in the process that you have, because a lot of times, and I was actually just going to ask you that did you find that after you the six weeks you do feel like you know, you need a break, or you need some time off. So I love that you built in those two weeks, because a lot of times you're so laser-focused, it can be draining can be a lot. But once you know that you get to that kind of end, you can have those two weeks, and then you can start on something new. And for people like me, I know especially I enjoy kind of starting new things, I have a new project. So having both of those boats in is huge.
Chandler Walker 12:03
Yeah, I think it's huge. Because when you look at the CEO, they're often overworked, we tend to get in this hustle mentality like you need to hustle 24/7 If you're not, you should feel bad about yourself and find more work to do. But in reality, when you look at the way the brain works, if we're hustling 24/7 There's no time for it to relax and repair and grow. And if we give it that time, then it puts us in a place where we are incredibly more impactful in what we do, we're going to be more focused, we're going to be more creative, and we're going to have the capabilities to be the true CEO that we want and visionary that our business needs.
Gresham Harkless 12:34
Absolutely, absolutely. And taking into account rest is definitely a big part of that. And it's sleep, as you mentioned, as well, and your pillars. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?
Chandler Walker 12:51
There were two things number one, leveraging what I'm good at, and being really good at it, not trying to build on my strengths are my weaknesses and not trying to make myself better at what I'm not good at, find what you're good at, because you're the CEO, and you are the visionary and be incredibly good at that. And then find people who can pick up your weaknesses, and they can be good at that. So you built you essentially build a team of people who are good at the things that you're not good at, and you're good at the things that they're not good at. So all of you enhance each other and build upon each other's strengths.
I think if you can build a team like this, you put yourself in a place where you can rely on them, you can trust them, each one of you can be doing the specific tasks that you need to be focusing on, and nobody's doing double work, nobody's fighting or getting upset at each other. And you have a rock-solid team to move forward with. Because outside of that, if you don't have a solid team, you're everything is going to depend on you, you're going to be doing all the work and you're going to put yourself in a perpetual state of misery because you're just going to be in the weeds working on your business all the time, you're not going to actually be visionary and see what you need to do and adjust and modify and really grow the business to where it needs to grow.
Gresham Harkless 13:52
Absolutely. And it's definitely important to be able to do that because that's how you progress forward. That's how you you know break down walls and crushing goals as well too. If you're able to do that and kind of have that focus on what your strengths are and laser focus on those and then understand to bring on people to support you in your weaknesses or things you don't do as well, I should say. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Chandler, what does being a CEO mean to you?
Chandler Walker 14:22
To me being a CEO is I don't think it should be this. It's the guy who does who knows how to do everything and who knows how to lead a team in the right direction. It's the hero of the story, even if it's a reluctant hero, it's the visionary behind the brand. And it's the person who can inspire, motivate and create action amongst the people who not only work for them but the people who are the consumers who are going to purchase and buy the products.
The CEO is the one person that everybody should be able to look to and say that's the reason that I want to do this. That's the reason I want to keep moving forward. The passion, the drive, the efficacy, and everything behind that is the reason that I want to make this work and you have to you have to be a leader you have to be a visionary. You have to be able to continuously drive that forward and continuously try and reinvent yourself and reinvent your company, or you're going to be out of business or your staff not going to want to follow you and you're gonna have high turnover, or nobody's gonna buy your product.
Gresham Harkless 15:11
Absolutely. No, that's definitely a great reminder to kind of understand. So Chandler, I truly appreciate your time. And what I wanted to do was pass on the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get out of you find out about all the awesome things you're doing.
Chandler Walker 15:26
Yeah, I think as you go through this, I always talked about the success mindset, you're gonna go through hard times, you're gonna go through ups and downs, the business is going to skyrocket and it's going to plummet and you're going to be good for a little while. Just remember it is the success mindset. So for every negative thought, you have, like, I can't do this anymore, or it's too much, or I'm overwhelmed, think, Okay, I'm overwhelmed, but this is what I'm going to do to make it better. I can't do this anymore, but maybe I should take a little break and then I'll come back and I'll crush it or I'm not sure how to solve this problem.
But I'm going to find a consultant or find someone who can help me work through this. You can send me an email at chandler@stoneagefuel.com. Or you can send me a Facebook message. I have a Facebook profile. We do a live video every day where we talk about mindset and just different things. You can go to facebook.com/chanslogic and you can hit me up there and shoot me a message.
Gresham Harkless 16:19
Appreciate you, my friend. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Chandler Walker 16:21
Thanks.
Outro 16:22
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
INTRO 0:02
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
Gresham Harkless 0:30
Hello this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today at Chandler Walker of Culture of Care and Stone Age Fuel. Chandler it's awesome to have you on the show.
Chandler Walker 0:40
Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to your audience. And hopefully they have good time and their eyes don't glaze over and they don't fall asleep.
Gresham Harkless 0:47
If they do, it'll be largely because of me not because of you because you're doing some awesome things. So I wanted to read a little bit more about Chandler so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Chandler is a visionary business leader with high emotional intelligence and a rare mix of strategic technology, marketing, sales and expertise combined with a true talent for devising and applying new ideas and innovation to propel companies to build competitive advantages. Chandler Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
Chandler Walker 1:16
I am I'm excited. Let's do this.
Gresham Harkless 1:17
Let's do it. So the first question I had was the hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?
Chandler Walker 1:25
Yeah, so my story goes way back. I remember being a kid and my dad had a business for years, he still has the business, I think it's been around since the 80s. So it's still flourishing and running, he would say, hey, Chandler, let's get up at six o'clock in the morning, and I'll get you a doughnut and some orange juice, and we're gonna go to a customer's house. And so we do that all the time. And the only reason I enjoyed it was because I got that doughnut and orange juice. But also I got, I got to watch him interacting with customers and watching him do his business and watch how he was selling people and talking and just moving forward. And I thought it was pretty neat. And as I got older, I worked for him for a few summers. And I realized he was a contractor business, I realized that I definitely did not want to do hard labor for a living after work with him for a few summers. But he always told me, Hey, Chandler, don't open your own business, go work for the post office, get a retirement and just don't worry about anything. And so I did the exact opposite of what he said, and opened my own business and kind of progressed into where I was today. And it kind of started off in route to where I went to college. And I was kind of focused on business. But I switched to biochemistry at some point and decided that maybe I would go through the med school route. I was like, Maybe I should pursue something where it's, quote unquote, stable. And so I got kind of through it, I was in my internship and precepting a lot. And I realized that one of the things that I was doing in this profession at that point was providing medication that people and they didn't necessarily want to make a lifestyle change. And so at that point, I decided that I needed to start my own thing, create my own entity where I could help people remove chronic pain, and build the best version of who they are, without using medication and without being just stuck and without having to go into pain management. And that's what how Stone Age Fuel was born, which is our original first business. And so I just started a blog. And it was what we thought from a biochemical perspective and what the industry was perpetrating. So what was the health and wellness industry trying to sell you and what actually made sense and what was actually true. And so we got a big following. We got people all over the world inviting us to go talk and give our we call it our fluff to tough healthy eating presentation. And so we taught everybody how to turn their fluff in the tough. And eventually we turn that into a brick and mortar business. And then eventually we turn that again into an online based business. And then I realized at some point that after I came on with a consulting agency, once we started getting really good at Stonyfield, we started helping other businesses getting get their strategic action plan in order get their unique selling proposition set up, I realized that there was one more thing that was holding people back. And it was the mental health aspect. So people came into this already defeated, already broken and already convincing themselves that they couldn't move forward. And so at that point, I realized that we had to start something that where we could help people get past their barriers or triggers their problems and their issues. So they could make the decision to build the best version of who they are and to build the best version and remove Chronic pain. And that's when Culture of Care was born. So we created an eight week curriculum based on Cognitive Behavior Therapy. So myself and I have a clinical psychologist who built it with me and that takes people from the point of I'm stuck I don't know who I am, I don't know how to get past these I have these childhood issues that I can't get over to now I feel good about myself, I'm comfortable with my thoughts and emotions and I'm ready to take it to the next level.
Gresham Harkless 4:32
Nice I absolutely love that and appreciate that especially from the foundation of you know, going out getting your your doughnut and orange juice with your dad to what you're building now because a lot of times you know, those foundational skills whether you know it or not, even though your dad said, you know, go get a job at the post office, he saw you, You saw him I should say and I'm sure that it basically laid a foundation for what you wanted to do and now you know you're doing all these kind of awesome things to kind of help out the clients and in do you find that is where, you know, Cultural of Care came about where that kind of mindset was so strong that it can kind of direct person, you know, either left or right, depending on what those foundational principles were.
Chandler Walker 5:11
Yeah, I find and growing up, my mother was Bipolar. So I got to experience mental health from a childhood standpoint. And so as I progressed, I didn't understand it until I got deeper into working with actual people inside the gym under environment. But it kind of came back to where I originally was with my mother, it's people can't move forward if they don't feel good enough to move forward. And it's not as simple as saying, you know, brush it off, it's not as simple as saying, hey, you just you just got to think happy thoughts smile, though, it doesn't work that way. So you have to say, Okay, what's going on in your life. Why do you feel this way. Think back to your past what's going on in your childhood. I want you to write in a journal. And let's start understanding what's going on. And why we have these thoughts and why we're thinking, so why were we defeated ourselves before we've even started. And that's when the mindset piece came into play. It wasn't, we didn't want to come into this being like the standard life coach, we wanted to come into this and create a whole health and wellness aspect into our business. So it was eventually morphed into the five pillars of optimal wellness, which is mental health, social health, because right now, people are unbelievably lonely, and you wouldn't understand it, and you people would probably wouldn't even believe it. But I would say 50% of the population is incredibly lonely, but they don't feel good enough about talking about it. The third one is nutrition, or gut health, and then fitness. And finally sleep. And so I found that once we were able to capitalize on these five pillars of optimal wellness, with mental health being the first, then into social health, and then into the actual nutrition and fitness and sleep components that we could make help people make real change and help people not defeat themselves and help people not quit on themselves.
Gresham Harkless 6:43
Yeah, and I love that just because a lot of times, you know, when you're thinking about your health or your holistic health, especially, you're you're thinking that okay, let me go to the gym. Let me do more situps let me you know, not eat that doughnut or whatever it is. But understanding that those are five different pillars, that all play a part in your overall health is something that I think a lot of people forget.
Chandler Walker 7:02
Yeah, exactly. And we did until maybe five years ago, it was four partly, even talk about it, oh, I can't talk about the fact that I have maybe not thinking good about myself, or my thoughts aren't where they should be, or I'm just I just don't know where to go. And I'm stuck. And so everybody learned to just suck it up and not talk about it. But it creates a Cataclysmic Cascade of problems across the board over the course of your life, if you never actually talk about it, or learn to deal with or handle those feelings.
Gresham Harkless 7:27
Yeah, absolutely. So I appreciate you, you know, for dedicating your time and energy to help, you know, bring awareness to that, but also to help out people as well. So would you consider that you might have already touched on this to be like your secret sauce? What do you feel kind of is your unique selling proposition for your organization, even for your businesses?
Chandler Walker 7:45
Yeah, for our businesses, we have the five pillars and the secret sauce and the USP behind it would be, we help people remove anxiety and depression to kickstart their stealth career life. And we help people remove Chronic pain so that they can live life be mobile, and finally be free again. So it ties both back into the five pillars, it's removed the mental aspects and remove the physical aspects that are holding us back. And we can finally live optimally and happy again, and you can be 90 years old, and running next to your grandkids not be 90 years old and being pushed in a wheelchair in front of them. And that's what people ultimately want. They want to age well and live well and feel well.
Gresham Harkless 8:20
Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like and correct me if I'm wrong, a lot of that goes back to your conditioning the mindset as well, too. Because a lot of times, you have to understand that that is a reality that you can be 90 and do that. Because I think a lot of times, your reality becomes whatever you see. And if you don't see that, or you haven't seen that sometimes you don't think that that's possible. But you you're saying that that is definitely possible.
Chandler Walker 8:42
Yeah, absolutely. And it's getting over those the mindset, and this works with business owners as well, everybody's stuck. But everybody doesn't understand that typically, you've already defeated ourselves. And we've already decided that we can't take that step forward. We can't progress because of something that's happened in our past that's instilled fear on us and the inability to move forward.
Gresham Harkless 9:00
Yeah, absolutely. And I definitely think that there is a difference between you know, the mindset and the mental health as you kind of touched on to so understanding, which is, probably definitely something to know.
Chandler Walker 9:10
Exactly. You have to know when what feelings am I experiencing. Am I stuck. Okay, is this producing anxiety. Okay, so now I need to figure out how to get over this. Am I stuck. Do I feel down. Do I not feel good. Do I not want to get out of bed, okay, now we might be creeping into depression. So we can really pinpoint and understand and create an optimal pathway for getting someone to be better and better could be removing depression, it could be removing anxiety, it could be my mindset is kind of stuck. And I need to take it to the next level. So it might be removing a simple block that someone has.
Gresham Harkless 9:39
Right, exactly. So I definitely appreciate you for putting a time and effort into helping people out with that. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.
Chandler Walker 9:58
Yeah, my biggest one I think that's really hit me in the last couple of years is being laser focused on one thing, not to thing. And I think as CEOs, we tend to start getting focused, you see shiny things, it's shiny thing syndrome. I wanted to do this, and this and I'm doing 17 things average and then they start to fall apart one at a time. I think what you have to do is you have to say, Okay, here's my list of things that I'm doing. Number one through 10, boom, is this fulfill me at my core. Yes. Okay. Is this putting me in a place to where I'm financially. Yes. Okay, cool, give it a score. And then if both of those come into play, and you have yeses, then you can keep doing it. But if you say, Okay, this doesn't really bring me to where I want to be, I just thought it would be something cool to pursue, you probably should get rid of it. And so I think the idea is, find one or two things that you're unreasonably good at, and excel and push as hard as you can to be as good as possible at that and avoid at all costs, being focused on 17 different things, because we're going to be a lot better if we're focused on one simple task or two simple tasks, then we are focused on million and one thing I do to organize this is all set up as like a six week sprint. So this is what I'm focusing on for this six weeks exclusively. At the end of the six weeks, I look at okay, do I need to focus on this again. Okay, let's keep pursuing this. Okay, we are we got this down. Now let's pick up something else. And then after, the six weeks, we give ourself about a two week break, because you need a brain break. If you don't get a brain break, you lose your creativity and ability to focus and move forward. And so we go sort of on these eight week cycles, six weeks working two weeks off, and it puts us in a really a good place to actually organize yourself and be incredibly good at what we do moving forward.
Gresham Harkless 11:31
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that, that laser focus and even in the process that you have, because a lot of times, and I was actually just going to ask you that did you find that after you the six weeks you do feel like you know, you need a break, or you need some time off. So I love that you built in those two weeks, because a lot of times you're so laser focus, it can be draining can be a lot. But once you know that you get to that kind of end, you can have those two weeks, and then you can start on something new. And for people like me, I know especially I enjoy kind of starting new things, I have a new project. So having both of those boats in is huge.
Chandler Walker 12:03
Yeah, I think it's huge. Because when you look at the CEO, they're often overworked, we we tend to get in this hustle mentality, like you need to hustle 24/7 If you're not, you should feel bad about yourself and find more work to do. But in reality, when you look at the way the brain works, if we're hustling 24/7 There's no time for it to relax and repair and grow. And if we give it that time, then it puts us in a place to where we are incredibly more impactful in what we do, we're going to be more focused, we're going to be more creative, and we're going to have the capabilities to be the true CEO that we want and visionary that our business needs.
Gresham Harkless 12:34
Absolutely, absolutely. And taking into account rest is definitely a big part of that. And it's sleep, as you mentioned, as well, and your pillars. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?
Chandler Walker 12:51
There was two things number one, leveraging what I'm good at, and being really good at it, not trying to build on my strengths are my weaknesses and not trying to make myself better what I'm not good at, find what you're good at, because you're the CEO, and you are the visionary and be incredibly good at that. And then find people who can pick up your weaknesses, and they can be good at that. So you built you essentially build a team of people who are good at the things that you're not good at, and you're good at the things that they're not good at. So all of you enhance each other and build upon each other's strengths. I think if you can build a team like this, you put yourself in a place to where you can rely on them, you can trust them, each one of you can be doing the specific tasks that you need to be focusing on, nobody's doing double work, nobody's fighting or getting upset at each other. And you have a rock solid team to move forward with. Because outside of that, if you don't have a solid team, you're everything is going to depend on you, you're going to be doing all the work and you're going to put yourself in a perpetual state of misery because you're just going to be in the weeds working on your business all the time, you're not going to actually be the visionary and see what you need to do and adjust and modify and really grow the business to where it needs to grow.
Gresham Harkless 13:52
Absolutely. And it's definitely important to be able to do that because that's how you progress forward. That's how you you know break down walls and in crushing goals as well too. If you're able to do that and kind of have that focus on what your strengths are and laser focus on those and then understand to bring on people to support you in your in your weaknesses or things you don't do as well, I should say. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Chandler, what does being a CEO mean to you?
Chandler Walker 14:22
To me being a CEO is I don't think it should be this. It's the guy who does who knows how to do everything and and who knows how to lead a team in the right direction. It's the hero of the story, even if it's a reluctant hero, it's the visionary behind the brand. And it's the person who can inspire, motivate and create action amongst the people who not only work for them, but the people who are the consumers who are going to purchase and buy the products. The CEO is the one person that everybody should be able to look to and say that's the reason that I want to do this. That's the reason I want to keep moving forward. The the passion, the drive, the efficacy and everything behind that is the reason that I want to make this work and you have to you have to be a leader you have to be a visionary. You have to be able to continuously drive that forward and continuously try and reinvent yourself and reinvent your company, or you're going to be out of business or your staffs not going to want to follow you and you're gonna have high turnover, or nobody's gonna buy your product.
Gresham Harkless 15:11
Absolutely. No, that's definitely a great reminder to kind of understand. So Chandler, I truly appreciate your time. And what I wanted to do was pass on the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get out of you find out about all the awesome things you're doing.
Chandler Walker 15:26
Yeah, I think as you go through this, I always talked about the success mindset, you're gonna go through hard times, you're gonna go through ups and downs, the business is going to skyrocket and it's going to plummet and you're going to be good for a little while. Just remember it being the success mindset. So for every negative thought, you have, like, I can't do this anymore, or it's too much, or I'm overwhelmed, think, Okay, I'm overwhelmed, but this is what I'm going to do to make it better. I can't do this anymore, but maybe I should take a little break and then I'll come back and I'll crush it or I'm not sure how to solve this problem. But I'm going to find a consultant or find someone who can help me work through this. You can send me an email chandler@stoneagefuel.com. Or you can send me a Facebook message. I have a Facebook profile. We do a live video every day where we talk about mindset and just different things. You can go to facebook.com/chanslogic and you can hit me up on there and shoot me a message.
Gresham Harkless 16:19
Appreciate you my friend. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Chandler Walker 16:21
Thanks.
Outro 16:22
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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