Failure is an inevitability in life, and no, that’s not a bad thing because these failures can – and should – be taken as goalposts that tell you it’s time to make a change. Overcoming failure is such a vital skill in becoming successful, and while it may not be instinctual to everyone, it is a skill that can be learned and developed over time. Scott Carson speaks to Christopher Wirth, an entrepreneur, financial advisor, and motivational speaker. Christopher is also the host of his own podcast, No Quit Living, about overcoming obstacles and finding the motivation to continue on in your journey. Learn how to channel that resistance that will stop you from ever quitting on your way to the top.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

No Quit Living: Control Your Mind, Control Your Life With Christopher Wirth

As entrepreneurs, sometimes it’s a lonely road and sometimes things don’t go our way. Sometimes we’ve got to take two steps back. Sometimes we’ve got to take two steps forward, all the conversations that I have with students from Note Nation out there and people looking to do something big. I had a great discussion with a couple of guys that were struggling as entrepreneurs and struggling to make funds. They wanted to quit on their dreams. I was like, “If you got to take a step back for a little bit, take a little step back, but don’t give up on your dream. Don’t give up on your way.” That’s why I’m excited to have our special guest.

This guy is the Founder and President of No Quit Living, which follows exactly what we want to talk about. It’s a speaking, coaching and training company. No Quit Living works with individuals, teams, and corporations to help improve accountability, effectiveness, and efficiency. It looks to motivate and inspire their clients to never give up on themselves, their goals and their dreams. It’s like divine intervention. Our special guest is Christopher Wirth. He’s the host of the No Quit Living podcast, which remains at the top 50 podcasts on iTunes in three different categories, business, health, and self-help. He’s also a highly sought-after keynote speaker. If you need a dynamic speaker to motivate, inspire and captivate your audience, look no further than our buddy, Christopher Wirth. How’s it going?

I want to first off say thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. It’s an honor to be here.

We’re glad to have you. We’ve connected on our mass media podcast. We reached out and shared. I love what you’re doing. Why don’t you start by giving a little background on how you got to where you’re at, what you’re doing, and why NQL is awesome and such an amazing movement going on.

It originated back without knowing in my sports career. I played two sports in college and I played 5 or 6. I’ve been competitively growing up and after college, I coached college, high school, and AAU basketball. That’s where the coaching perspective came. I’ve also run a wealth management firm and I got certified at the first-ever John C. Maxwell Speaking, Training & Coaching Certification Program back in 2011. I did it selfishly because I wanted to be a better speaker, trainer and coach for myself, my team and my junior partners. In 2016, I launched No Quit Living as a motivational speaking, training and coaching company.

It’s taken off and I say that not in a boastful way, nor am I bragging. It’s taken off because not knowing the whole concept and idea where it was going to go. I talked to people on my podcast and the second question I ask our guests is a no-quit story. Almost every single person says, “Which one do you want to hear, Chris?” It’s funny and you laugh. I laugh, but the reality in life is it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are, how old or young you are, your color, religion, and background. Everybody has a no-quit story. Most people have multiple no quit stories and in no way shape or form is that negative. That’s the reality of life.

One of my first guests ever shared a quote from an amazing philosopher and I was all excited taking notes down. He said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” He said, “Mike Tyson.” I was like, “I don’t think Mike Tyson was a famous philosopher,” but it’s an amazingly simple truth. When everything’s going great, it’s easy and simple. Whether you’re in sports or business, if your stock price is fine up and you haven’t lost a game in weeks, it’s easy to get up in the morning, go to bed and talk to your spouse or kids or family and friends.

What I realized is that the whole No Quit Living idea and concept is something that has taken off in this sense because everybody says, “I need that extra inspiration,” or “I’m having a tough day,” or “I lost a big sale,” or “We lost our best player for the season and we need other people to step up.” It’s a cool concept and idea. It allowed us to do a lot of other things and we’re doing a lot of cool positivity movements along the way. It’s been exciting getting a chance to connect with people like you and like-minded individuals, realizing that you can help others.

Selfishly sharing a quick story about you and me, the first time we spoke on the phone, 35 to 45 seconds into it, the first question you asked me after we said hello was, “How can I help you?” That’s something that we all can do and need to do more of. When you do that for the right reasons, it comes back tenfold. It might not be to you or to your wife, husband or kids. Maybe it’s to a friend or cousin. I believe in the boomerang effect where if you do the right thing and you try to positively impact other people, it’s going to come back tenfold usually.

I want to jump in on that quote from Mike Tyson. We all are running along. We think everything is going to be good and we don’t expect bad things to happen. We have things that happen in the real estate space all the time. Deals, funding, and bids that we’re working through doing due diligence fall through and it’s easy to get down on yourself, “This suck.” Those that keep going and those that stick to what they’re doing, in the long run, they have had more knowledge to get to where they’re at than most people have. There’s a quote from Michael Jordan that said, “I’ve missed more than most people have tried.” You take the shots and I’ve missed more shots than you’ve ever attempted. Entrepreneurs that have been around for a while develop a thick skin. They start to realize that and there are multiple no quit stories, but a lot of people don’t realize that in this society. The generation of participation trophies doesn’t work in real life. Did you get participation trophies, Chris?

I can honestly say, I and my brother still have our trophies, awards and all that stuff growing up. A couple of years ago, he and I went back to look at it. In no way am I saying that my brother and I were MVPs and All-Stars in every single aspect. There was not a single participation trophy and thanks for showing up. I have three young kids. It’s good when you’re 3, 4 and 5 years old. You’re not going to have a three-year-old screaming and say, “You lost, get out of here.” When you get to be 7, 8, 9, 10 and above, the reality of life hits you where everybody doesn’t win all the time. It’s okay if it’s done the right way and you don’t chastise somebody or poke fun at them. You say, “You lost the game,” or “You didn’t get the lead in the play. The good news is there’s another play in the fall,” or “There’s another game next week. How do we learn from it?” The whole participation trophy is not realistic because everybody doesn’t win all the time. If that was the case, we’d all be billionaires. Nobody would fail ever and everything would be great.

 

We’d all be quadriplegics as adults if we had to learn how to walk when we were older.

I don’t know how we do it.

I’ve got a buddy who served in Iraq and he lost both his legs. When I see him and I talk to him, you can’t have a bad day if you’re waking up. You’ve got to use all your limbs and your health and stuff like that. This guy is out running marathons in 5Ks and 10Ks and doing amazing things out there. You have to give it up to him and other people like that. One of the great things about being an athlete is that you’ll learn to get hit in the mouth more often. Your shot blocked, fouled out, get run over by the running back and other cases or by a pancake block where you’re the pancake and not the blocker. Life will do that to us. We had that happen for a lot of entrepreneurs with the crash. People are losing their houses and people losing investment properties. I see a lot of people out there that are struggling to make ends meet. Everything seems good and markets are doing well, but a lot of people are struggling to get by on things. What are some things that you would share with our readers out there? Maybe 1, 2 or 3 tips to help them get over those humps to keep going and not to give up.

You touched on it as far as the Michael Jordan quote that you shared. I am a huge follower of quotes. I have them collected all over the place.

It’s all over your Instagram, which I love.

It’s on my Instagram. You can see them in my office. One of the things I found interesting in some of the most successful people that we look up to, and I say we generally, whether it’s business sports or entertainment, they talk about all of the times that they failed. In the sense that it made me better and I came back. I want to share one quick little story with your readers. You asked about 1, 2 or 3 tips. The one thing that I would say the most important thing is most of the time, people want to give up right before the tides about to turn, whether it’s a week, a month or six months.

I’m not saying in any way that you never give up and you keep going no matter what. There’s a point where you have to realign and maybe take a couple of steps back. The famous actor, Mark Ruffalo, has been in a lot of movies. He’s the Hulk and it’s probably the most well-known from the visual perspective because those movies absolutely kill it in the box office. There’s a story that I saw many years ago and I’ve read it, whether it’s 100% true or close. He went on up to 600 auditions and he did not get a single part. He also had family issues with one of his brothers getting killed. He had issues with half of his face being paralyzed and tried to be an actor in that world.

People see him now and they say, “He’s successful. He’s the Hulk. He’s been in all these other movies. He’s been unbelievably successful.” The one thing that is not fair in the sense of social media is that you don’t see what happened before. For your readers out there, you’re a lot closer than you were. Even if you’re having a tough day and lose a deal, realize and understand that you are one step closer and it doesn’t mean you’re going to be a millionaire or a billionaire overnight, but keep going. Every single day, you can’t give 100%. There are days when you’re having a tough day and you lose a deal, a game, a house or an investment property, but you can always give a little bit more. You can always give a little bit extra effort. It doesn’t mean success and in no way does it mean you’re going to be undefeated.

David Goggins, who I know you know of, in the sense of being an insane guy in a positive way. He’s one of the only guys who went through BUD/S three times in a two-year period. He says, “That’s interesting.” He says, “When most people give up or they think they’re done and have nothing left, they’ve only given about 40%.” What I said to people to take it a step further is, “Give one more chance, make one more phone call, send one more text message, write one more handwritten note and send one more email.” Any readers that are out there, you’re not going to be guaranteed that one more is going to make a difference, but I guarantee that if you put that 1% or one more idea or concept into your business and personal life?

It’s going to happen a day, a week, a month down the road. When you make one more now and then you fast forward and compound that over 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, that’s 21 more context, 30 more phone calls, and 30 more emails. If you keep doing that consistently, you are going to be successful. It isn’t going to happen overnight but everybody out there can do a little more. You and I included, we can give 1% more, one more phone call, text message, and email. If you do that and you compound it, you’re going to be more successful because it’s all those little things.

I say this all the time in sports and you reference that we’re both sports guys. I’ve been a fan of all different sports since I was little and I’ve never seen or heard of a championship that was won or lost after the first game. In the NFL, I’ve never seen the commissioner say after the first weekend, “You guys are awesome. We’re going to give you the championship now and we’re going to cancel the rest of the season.” Many teams have started poorly and continue to do it. The first win on the road, the first home win, and the first two-game winning streak, when you compound those small victories, it leads to the big championship down the road.

Success is bred into people doing that little bit extra 1% to 5% that nobody else does. The thing that frustrates me in society these days is everybody’s looking for that quick fix or the least amount of activity to find success. They go, “I want to get rich quick. What’s the least amount that I have to do to be successful?” You see the same thing too, don’t you?

That’s one of the misconceptions of social media. You see somebody’s success of maybe having 500,000 views or 1 million likes and you say, “Let me do that.” I won’t say who it is but I’ve followed a lot of different people and I see these things all the time. It’s like, “Write a best-selling book in 30 days or less.” I’ve had some unbelievable guests as you have on your show and I’ve had some best-selling authors. I always bring it up to them. They laugh, smirk and say, “Chris, there’s nothing that’s guaranteed. There’s no program out there where you can just take anybody, collect their $100 or $200 and make them a best-selling author in 30 days or less.”

Whether you like football or not, Tom Brady is considered one of the greatest football players and quarterbacks of all time as far as stats alone and championships. He wasn’t a success immediately. He didn’t have a great college career. He was not drafted highly and he was not even expected to be a starter or a main component to the New England Patriots for a couple of years. Unfortunately, there was an injury and he got an opportunity to step up, but there’s nothing a quick fix. It’s like, “Drink this and you will lose 40 pounds overnight, and you’re going to be Mr. Universe.” There are things that are continually advancing and one thing I always say is technology. Especially in the medical field, people 20 or 30 years ago at the age of 60 would have cancer and a year later, they, unfortunately, passed away.

Now, somebody gets cancer at the age of 80 and a year later, they’re completely fine, and they live to be 100 years old. There are amazing things that are out there but there’s nothing that’s overnight. I’m a big quote guy. I forget who said this but I’ve heard it 30 different times. It was on one of Hal Elrod’s podcasts. They were talking about overnight success and one of his guests said, “It wasn’t an overnight success. It took me ten years,” and everybody laughed. I always share that because there’s nothing that’s overnight that we see now. There are things that happened, whether it’s a lottery winner or something, but there’s never been a company that was created at 6 PM and all of a sudden, the next morning at 6 AM, they’re like, “Our value is now $10 billion and I’m done.”

That quote is from Daymond John, the founder of FUBU and the Shark Tank guy. I’ve heard him say that a couple of times. He talked about waiting tables at Red Lobster while working on his FUBU thing. He’s working a double shift, going home and working for six hours and stuff and then sleeping on the floor because they’ve sold everything off. I’m a big believer that we control a lot of our destiny in the day-to-day actions and mentality that we take. We’ve all got Debbie Downers in our lives. People that we want to get the hell away from, that drive us crazy. For those out there that are struggling because life seems to be giving them left and right hooks, what are some of the things that they should be doing? Should they change what they’re listening to, what they’re reading, and who they’re hanging out with? What do you see as the easiest things, some of the simplest things that we can do on a daily basis to change our trajectory and our mindset? If you’ve got a negative mindset, negative things happen to you. If you’ve got a positive mindset, that doesn’t mean negative things are going to happen to you. It’s just that you overcome those negative things faster and turn them into positive or turn the lemons into lemonades a lot faster.

I’ll use an old school individual, Zig Ziglar, who I feel is one of the best. He had an amazing quote many years ago, which doesn’t come into play as much now. He said, “The people who complain about pornography on their VCR. You take that tape VHS, you put it in there, and you have to press play. Nobody does it for you and you’re not forced to do it.” I share that with a little bit of humor but what I teach and coach people on is the concept of controlling the controllable. For me, it’s as simple as I can you control what I see, watch, hear and say. What I can’t control is you. I can’t control what you are saying and you’re going off for ten minutes about non-stop negativity and to your point, Debbie Downers.

I can control how much time I spend with you and how much time I spend with those other people that either keep me here at the status quo or maybe bring me down. Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most of your time with.” That comes into play more in this day and age. One thing that I would say to your readers is if they’re looking to make a change when I talk about the self-accountability mirror, it’s important. You have to look at yourself and you have to see what you’re doing. You have to be honest with yourself. You and I know that you could fib to a significant other and you could fib to a boss and say, “I made 25 calls.” Maybe you only made 18 or 19, but he or she might believe you because of the way you deliver it.

In the morning and at night, when you look in that self-accountability mirror, you can’t lie to yourself. You could try but if you look in the mirror and you know you didn’t go to the gym and say, “I crushed my workout.” You look back and you say, “No, that didn’t happen. That’s not the way it is.” The other thing that I say with people in addition to what you hear, see and who you spend your time with is social media is an unbelievably powerful tool. People use it and I feel the wrong way. What I mean by that is if you have those friends that are always bragging, “I’m doing this. I’m going there,” it’s going to make you feel like you’re not up to their level. It’s not going to make you feel good. You don’t have to unfriend them and say, “I’m never listening to you,” but you can mute certain people.

 

I talked about that quite a bit as you can control what comes across your screen, whether it’s Facebook Instagram or Twitter. You can control the type of messages you see and the type of people that you interact with. That’s the thing about controlling the controllable. You can’t control every single person that comes into your day, whether someone bumps into your office or you bump into a friend or somebody at the gym. Just because somebody’s there, it doesn’t mean you have to spend 25 minutes with them. You can be nice and cordial to somebody but if you know that that person brings you down a little bit, you can say in a nice way, “I’ll connect in a little bit. I’ll finish my cardio.”

It’s not mean and it’s not rude or you’re saying to yourself, “It’s more important for me right now to listen and to put my time and effort behind those people that are going to bring me up.” You have the middle level the status quo where people want to keep you as is or you have the other perspective, which people want to bring you down and they want to destroy you or you have those other people that say, “I want to inspire you and motivate you,” or “Scott, why don’t you come to the gym with me tomorrow morning? You mentioned that you couldn’t do it and you’ve been busy. Let’s meet at 7:00 at the gym tomorrow and we’ll go through a workout.”

Those are the people that are going to continually push you. The one suggestion I say a lot is to look into an accountability partner. It’s something that we believe a lot at No Quit Living. I, myself, have quite a few different accountability partners and it’s free. The only challenge and I say the challenge in a good way, is you have to find the right person. Everybody’s not a great accountability partner and you’re not a great accountability partner for everybody. Once you find that right person or two, it does make a huge difference. It’s free and it doesn’t cost you anything other than your time and effort.

Having an accountability partner is such a critical aspect of things because we will give up on ourselves or lie to ourselves a lot of times, especially New Year’s resolution, going to the gym or choosing to do something else. If we got an accountability partner, it’s hard to look somebody in the eye and lie to them. I got it done when you did well because they’re there to see the improvement and action. Massive action to is a great way to keep rocking and rolling about things. Setting yourself many timelines is a big thing of 30, 60, 90 days of doing something because then you’ll look back like, “Look how far I’ve come in 90 days.” A lot of people don’t do that with an accountability partner or setting goals and they just drift.

Sharon Lechter, the co-author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, is a friend of mine. She co-authored Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill and she talks about how people drift through life. They don’t have any focus that’s why they’re not successful and they’re not finding the things that need to be done. I didn’t know that many of us struggle with drifting. Everybody does. No matter what it is, throughout the day, we all drift. What are some of the best tactics that you would recommend to help people avoid and find that focus and that true center so that they can pull up the gun and shoot the squirrels?

You hit on something. You and I had an interesting conversation about goals. You had shared with me some of your goals for getting on different podcasts and sharing your message and things. Two things that I would say to your readers is one, put your goals down on paper. Most people think about a goal and they potentially have an idea or concept of what it should be. When you put it down on paper, it’s more real than just thinking about it. The other thing is I’m a huge believer in looking at my goals every morning and every night, but I’m also a big believer in affirmations. I’m not talking about these affirmations where you wake up in the morning and you say, “I’m amazing. Everything is perfect.” Those are not realistic in the sense of Mike Tyson’s jokes in the comments of things that happen.

They are affirmations in regards to goals you want to have personally, professionally, whether it’s with your family or friends. When you start writing down your goals and affirmations, and you start saying them, when you listen to them, it puts you on a different and more focused path. It doesn’t mean in any way that you’re guaranteed success overnight or within two days. People always follow up usually and say, “How long and how often should I do it?” What I say to people is, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” If you have not engaged in putting goals down on paper and listening, writing or verbalizing your affirmations, I’d be silly to say to you, “Scott, you’ve never done it before. I want you to do it for an hour and a half this morning and two hours tonight.” You’re going to say, “Chris, that’s almost three hours if not more than my time. I can’t do that.”

I take it a step further and I say, “How about this? Why don’t you grab five minutes this morning and five minutes tonight? It could be in your bed, at your home office, and even at your lunch break. Write some stuff down and think about it. Think about what are those goals that you could go after.” I always say for people to have goals that they feel they can do, but also to have those stretch goals. Another Zig Ziglar’s quote is, “You can’t hit a target you don’t have.” I always ask that when I’m coaching people. I say, “Tell me your goals.” I do a lot in the real estate world as well with coaching real estate brokers, agents, and sales teams. I always ask that question, “What’s your goal this quarter or this year?” Everyone always says, “I want to do more.” I said, “Let me take one step further, Scott. You made $100,000 last year.” Let’s say you did and you said, “Yes, I did.” I said, “This year, you’re going to be satisfied making $100,005?” You’re like, “Of course, not.” I said, “Let’s put an actual goal to it.”

Let’s say you want to do 1.5 times at $150,000. If you don’t hit it but you still get $140,000 or $145,000, you’re going to feel good about it. You’re not going to feel 100% satisfied but you’re going to say, “I went from $100,000 to $145,000. Next year, I want to go to $200,000.” The people that I work with, some of my mentors and some of my accountability partners, we always talk about goals. We always talk about putting things down on paper. I’m a huge believer. We have our No Quit Living journals, which are little fancy journals, but they’re completely blank inside. I tell people all the time, “There’s nobody that can tell you. This is the magic secret where you have to write goals or affirmations this way. It’s got to be done with this specific pen color.” I know people that jot them all down.

I know you know Grant Cardone because you’re in the real estate world. In 2020, I’ve seen him speak live and heard him live many times. He talks about how he writes his goals down and what he used to do growing up was taking a yellow pad of paper and writing them down. He didn’t have a fancy system. He didn’t have an app on his phone. He’s worth a significant amount of money and he’s self-made. I always tell people, “Don’t look to make it more complicated than it needs to be.” Look at somebody like Grant who’s amassed a huge real estate empire and if he can do it on a yellow pad, I’m sure that we all can do it simply as well.

I’m writing it down on an index card. I use a lot of index cards when I travel or go to events that I take notes on that I can go back and make that easy to do. I have a journal as well that I carry with me. What are your biggest goals?

My biggest goal is finishing my first book. It’s titled Addition by Subtraction. I’ve been working on that for a while. I know it’s silly but you and I spoke a little bit. We have these positivity notes where we write positive quotes and we’ve gotten to 28 or 29 states. One of our huge goals is to be in all 50 states before the year is over and to be in as many different countries as we can. The reason I say that is I’m not going to 50 states myself. I’m not going to multiple countries. What we’re doing is we’re leveraging the power of social media and the power of positivity. When you inspire and motivate somebody, it has a positive snowball effect. It’s the domino effect where all of a sudden, you feel amazing and you share it with your spouse, friend, mother, father, teammate or coworker.

All of a sudden, they share it and one positive action has a snowball effect of impacting 10, 15, 20 other people. That’s what’s happened with our positivity notes. People have seen it on Instagram and said, “Can you send me some?” I sent out twenty positivity notes to Ontario, Canada, which is cool. It’s our 3rd or 4th time we’ve been in Canada. Those are my two biggest and the other one is we’re relaunching our podcast. We recorded a ton of people so we don’t get caught up. I don’t have a goal in the sense of a monetary number. I don’t have a marketing goal or download goal. I have specific goals. I want to have a significantly positive impact on at least one person every single day that listens to one of the shows. They pay it forward in their way.

You’re a CFP as well, correct?

Nope. We have multiple CFPs in our office, but I’m not.

That’s going to help you with what you’re doing in NQL too.

When you have the structure to focus in a sense of discipline and consistency, all of it comes together. You have those good days but then you also have those tough days. There’s such a huge parallel between the two of them for me where they’re almost going the same way in both directions, which is not different in what you do in both of your fields.

With all the interviews you’ve done with sports figures and entrepreneurs, what’s 1 or 2 that stick out that surprised you in your podcast interviews? What’s one thing that you walked away from it and was like, “I didn’t expect that,” and then you came away with a story or a solution that you were surprised to get, Chris.

I’ll share an interesting story. I know you know the football movie, Rudy. My father, my mother and I were involved in Broadway. It’s one of our side passions. We’ve done investment for producing different shows. The first show we got involved with ended up winning for Tony Awards, which was unbelievable. I’ve loved the movie Rudy ever since I was little. I was playing football in eighth grade when it came out and I was a quarterback. I fell in love with the movie and got a chance to go to Notre Dame to see a game live within a couple of months after the movie came out.

My point of that is I had the real Rudy Ruettiger on my show and it was unbelievable. We were contacted by somebody that wanted to get Rudy to do a one night on Broadway live show. A week after my show aired with Rudy, he came to New York and we got a chance to spend about two hours with him before the show. He brought us on stage and we’re doing some projects with him. The coolest part about his story is I knew it, but he talked about it in a different way on the show. What people didn’t realize was he was in his mid to late-twenties when that happened. People think it was right after high school and that’s a lot of Hollywood changing it.

The most interesting perspective which I did not know about his story is he was famous in the sense of at Notre Dame. He came back to Notre Dame and he wanted to do the movie. The actual university was against it because of fanfare and all that stuff. He had the ninth inning with two outs and two strikes so they told him, “You have one week to get this in place.” He said, Chris, “I have no idea how I did it, but I just went after it.” The reason I share that story is every single person has a no-quit time or a time where they could have given up and you can go a little bit more. What he didn’t accept is not trying. He said to me off-air, and we’ve spoken many times, “I didn’t know it was going to happen.”

He said, “This is back in the ‘90s. It’s not like now where you click a button and you have access to people.” He’s like, “I don’t know if you call a studio or do you call 1-800 Notre Dame.” He’s like, “You just get after it.” That’s been the biggest thing in the sense of a lot of people that know that some of the stuff we’ve done with Rudy. He’s bigger and better in real life than he is in the movie. Most people look at him as Sean Astin, the actor. He’s an unbelievable guy. That was probably the most influential story that I had because he told it and it took it to a more real non-Hollywood version that to this day stands out.

 

I love that story. It’s one of my favorite movies growing up as well. I was able to attend a Notre Dame season opener a couple of years ago walking into the stadium. You’re in 50-yard line seats, halfway up. They won vs Temple. The drama and the fanfare are giving me chills thinking about it because I love that story. They’ve done movies on and I’ve got to watch it. Most people don’t realize he was in his mid-twenties and he worked for a few years in the iron plants if I remember correctly.

That is true, but he’s in the military as well.

Everything happened with his friend passing on and then the struggle of getting in, staying there and going through all that stuff. It’s such a great story. That’s one of my top four movies to watch if I’m never down that Cinderella Man with JJ Braddock.

The one thing that I’ll say about that story is in this day and age with movies in 3D and 4D, soon it can be 12D, the thing that people connect with that story is he wasn’t a 40-year-old that went back to college and became the MVP. He went on to a professional career for twenty years and made $150 million. What people don’t realize is his story, as crazy as it is, he played into college downs. That’s what people don’t realize. He was on the kickoff team. They kicked the ball off and then he was on one defensive play when he got the sack of the quarterback. That’s the best part about the story and it’s powerful, but it’s something that anybody can do. If somebody was six foot ten and had the insane athletic ability or the ability to throw a fastball 104 miles an hour, most people could relate to it. Maybe it’s a good story, it sounds good and it’s a good movie, but that’s the thing that he says.

He’s unbelievably humble about it, which hit me. He said, “Chris, I didn’t do anything that anybody else couldn’t do. I just didn’t give up and every time I got knocked down, like Mike Tyson comes, ‘Every time I got a bloody lip and I was sore, I just got back up,’ I didn’t know what else to do.” He’s like, “That’s how I was raised.” He was from the Midwest and that was his mentality. He had a goal of playing in Notre Dame and he told his brothers and friends, and they all laughed at him. Somehow, somewhere, he kept going, which is the crazy part. Everybody told him no and it was never going to happen. His dad and his brothers said, “Rudy when you shoot up, I’ll be there. Don’t worry.” Not in any way, shape or form they thought that was going to happen. Lo and behold, it did.

He had the world against him and he is still as passionate about what he did in promoting and inspiring people to take action and do amazing things by showing up on a regular basis. He still lives and I saw an interview with him as well. He is still as motivated and fired up. He is Notre Dame’s biggest fan too.

He’s nuts in that way.

He’s little nuts and crazy but you’ve got to be a little crazy to find success. You’ve got to be a little crazy to go against the grain to tell everybody, “No. I’m going to prove you wrong.” You go out there and make things happen. When everything hit the fan for me years ago, I had people tell me I couldn’t do it so I sold everything here in Austin. What I thought would be a 30-week journey turned 3 to 4 plus years. It skyrocketed. I had a couple of hundred bucks in my bank account at some point. I had negative money in my bank account and it turned there. A lot of people went through that. You don’t want to give up and you want to keep going. You can do those little things and get rock and rolling. What’s your favorite go-to book? Do you have a favorite book that you love to read?

I don’t have a go-to book. In my other office, which is across the hall, I have three shelves of books. The thing that I share with people is I don’t give out any of my books. I underline, highlight, circle, and fold pages down. If you were in my office and say, “Chris, let me check that out,” I’ll do you one better and I’ll send you a copy for you to have. The reason I share that is I have a ton of different books in sales and motivational personal growth where I’ll look at and I’ll say, “I want to flip through that.” One of my favorites and I’ll give you two, everyone knows it’s The Secret, which is amazing in the sense of the Law of Attraction. The one thing people miss is what the book doesn’t say. It doesn’t say, “Sit in your underwear in your bed and say, ‘I’m successful. I’m a millionaire,’ and do nothing.” It talks about going out and you got to take the action.

The other book I like and absolutely love is The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone. This is early Grant when he was getting after it. The reason I like that is that he says that everything he’s ever done that he achieved, any level of success took ten times the fill in the blank. It’s ten times the phone call, activity, and walking in random people’s offices. The thing that Grant says which hit me like a ton of bricks is, “When most people are not on target to hit their goal, what they usually do is they then lower their goal. They change their mind, ‘I wanted to get $100,000 of commissions this year. I’ll be okay with $75,000.’” He said, “It’s the exact opposite. What you need to do is 10X your activity and appointments.” That’s where people miss the boat. Those are two books that I love and I flip through a couple of times every year.

Both are phenomenal books out there. He’s got his 10X Con going on in Vegas as well. A buddy of mine is speaking there in the mortgage industry. With everything going on out there and with the craziness of society these days with the coronavirus and the elections, God forbid that train wreck on the debate. I had to turn it off and move on to something else because I was cracking up and everything. People want to blame other people for their problems. I’m a big believer that you’re at where you’re at because every decision you’ve made has led you to there. It’s nobody else’s fault. Nobody held a gun to your head. Nobody stopped you and said, “You couldn’t do that.” Has there been a time that you got sucked into that like we all have, to the point where it drives you bonkers? What did you do to eliminate that from your day in or a day out? What did you do to get beyond that?

It’s something that we all struggle with. I still encounter it. What I had to do mentally, physically and emotionally is I needed to say that whatever happened. To your point about these decisions led me here, whether it is a good, bad or horrible situation, I changed the channel. Instead of saying, “This is happening to me,” I say, “This is happening for me.” I have one choice after that, which is I can be bitter or I can be better. I’ve always made the decision to try to be better. It doesn’t mean that everything is Pollyanna, wonderful and sunshine, but what it means is that you have to say, “Nothing is going to happen 1 or 2 weeks ago.” Nobody can go back maybe 10, 20, 30 years from now. We’ll be able to go back and rewrite our history in some ways.

Until that happens, you have a choice. You can either play the blame game and say, “Scott did this. This happened.” That might be the truth. Maybe Scott messed up Christmas and it’s irrelevant. You are where you are now and it goes back to what I said, “This is not happening to me, it’s happening for me. I need to figure out what is the next step I need to do. I can either be bitter about this or I can try to make it have me be better in whatever shape or form.” It’s in no way simple or easy. It’s not a 1 to a 5-minute conversation with myself and then I just snap my finger and say, “I got it.”

It was many days of struggling. It was a lot of affirmations, a lot of journaling and writing stuff down. Once you get your mindset where you say, “I can attack this and I can change it but it’s not going to happen on the zone.” I forget what the quote is but I’m sure you’ve heard and read it. It’s like, “Nothing amazing and nothing great has ever happened on its own.” It’s all because of multiple people and events. A massive amount of action is the answer to all problems, goals, challenges, and objectives. You need to put it a massive amount of action no matter what you want to accomplish.

Chris, you’re also looking to get out and help audiences of sales teams by speaking more out there. I’m sure you’ve got a goal for that as far as your public speaking?

I have a goal of both a number of people or audiences as well as live events. My objective is to overdeliver. Every time I go there, I love to get on the phone with an individual or team. I go through exactly what their desired result is, then reverse engineer and say, “Here’s how we’re going to deliver that amazing 90-minute keynote,” or “Here’s how we’re going to deliver that six-week coaching program.” I want to do that as much as I can. The reason I say that is because we, at No Quit Living, have an amazing message and mission. We want to get it out there to as many people. The one thing I will say that is important for me is I have no monetary number behind that. If somebody said, “Would you rather have $1 million or $1?” Of course, personally, I have three young kids and I want to do a lot of things but I have never tied it to that specifically because that’s not nearly as important as building our brand, message, and mission the right way.

 

I appreciate you coming here on the Note Closers Show. What’s the best way for our readers out there and note nation to reach out to you, plug into what you’re doing, talk with you about coming out, helping motivate them as an emcee or speaker or training with them?

The most active place we’re on social media is Instagram and that’s @NoQuitLiving. Our website is NoQuitLiving.com, but I share my personal email address with everybody because I love connecting and it’s simple. It’s my first name Chris@NoQuitLiving.com and we respond to every single email. It’s amazing. I’ve reached out to some people that are multimillionaires and a couple of billionaires and they’ve responded. I say to people if people respond, then you were always going to respond. I love connecting and I’d love the opportunity to spread our no quit message. The last thing I’ll say for anybody that wants to get involved with any of our positive quotes, it’s simple. We fill them out, we send them to you, and we try and make it as easy as we can.

Check him out. He does No Quit Living on Instagram and all sorts of great quotes. It looks like you’ve got some workout goals. You’re throwing up some weights on some of the images I’ve seen on there. You are leading by example.

We have a whole accountability tribe team where there’s a bunch of us that get to the gym at 4:00 AM when it opens and we push the heck out of each other. No days off is our theme and the cool thing is if I’m feeling down or something, somebody there is like, “Chris, let’s go,” and vice versa. When someone walks in a little bit out, I’ll say, “Let’s put the time.” I was on someone else’s podcast and I’ll share this. I’ve never known anybody that has ever said after a workout is completed, “I wish I didn’t do it. I feel terrible. I wish I was back in bed.” It’s always the opposite. It’s hard. It was a struggle, but when you’re done, it always feels better.

It’s one of the famous quotes from Dennis Rodman, the Wild Man, the Worm. It’s how he used to work out every day, no matter how late he stayed up or how hard he partied. He said that he always felt better afterward and that’s what made him the best at what he was, not just wearing a wedding gown but being the number one defender and rebounder in the NBA.

He used to work out almost after every single game as well. You’d see him in the locker room on a bike doing stuff and people say, “How do you do it?” He wants to be the best and he knew that he had to do that and he did it.

Chris, thank you so much for coming on to the Note Closers Show. Those are great nuggets of success. Go check out his podcast, No Quit Living. It’s a great show and great guests out there. I’ve been seeing some episodes and he’s got a great mix of entrepreneurs and ex-athletes out there who are sharing their message and taking things to a whole next level. As he said before, we’ve all got our no quit story 1, 2 or 3 times. The ones that are on top have not given up and overcome huge obstacles sometimes with themselves and sometimes in any other circumstances, but they’ve gone out to do big things. You go out and take some action and we’ll see you all at the top.

 Important Links:

• No Quit Living
• No Quit Living podcast
• iTunes – No Quit Living Podcast
• David Goggins
• Daymond John
• Outwitting the Devil
• Grant Cardone
• The Secret
• The 10X Rule
• 10X Con
• @NoQuitLiving
• Chris@NoQuitLiving.com
• http://www.NoQuitLiving.com

About Christopher Wirth

Christopher is the host of the No Quit Living Podcast which has been rated as a top 50 Business Podcast on iTunes. Christopher is a sought after Keynote Speaker. If your need is for a dynamic speaker to motivate, inspire and captivate your audience– look no further!

Christopher began his coaching career as an AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) Basketball Coach, Collegiate Basketball Coach, as well as High School Basketball Coach.

Christopher lives in Greenwich, CT with his three children – Zachary, Emily, and Mason. In addition to building and growing No Quit Living – Christopher also enjoys spending time playing sports, traveling, reading, and working out.

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