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Introduction 0:01
Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns 0:19
It's a great day for the pirate broadcast. we're back again with #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. If you're watching us live, make a few comments, share your thoughts and ask some questions. It's really simple and easy. So we're on platforms like LinkedIn live, Facebook live, Periscope, as well as YouTube. If you'd like to follow us and get notified, go to YouTube, follow my channel, subscribe, like, comment, all of those social media things that people like to do to support people like me. So I love that you're here and we have an amazing guest on and I wanted to introduce you to to Chris Decker. Chris has been an amazing individual going through social media. He's got a long backstory of adventures, and some exciting things taking place. With most entrepreneurs, we have things that we change, and we evolve, and we go through this journey of life. We're going to be talking about that and what he's doing today, because it's a pretty exciting project. Chris, how you doing today?

Christopher Decker 1:30
Hi, good morning, Russ. Thank you for for bringing me on to this platform today.

Russ Johns 1:37
It's an amazing thing. I'm almost a year into it now, 250 episodes or so I don't know. I didn't number them,so I'm not counting. The whole point of this thing is to exercise the opportunity to introduce and highlight other people that are doing some #interestingthings and I love the idea of bringing that to the table so we can inspire and educate and maybe motivate a few people to do something bigger than what we're doing right now. I know that you have a long history of social media, you've done meetups, we had a conversation, I was on your show and we were talking about the idea that getting people together and making an impact in the market is one of the most important things we can do for our legacy. I know that you are looking to leave a legacy of a few people. So I want to dive into that a little bit and peel back the onion and understand what it is you're working on right now. What your goals are with that project because I really thrive in that concept of what you're doing. So I want to share that with everybody here today.

Christopher Decker 2:59
Absolutely. I'll play it like this. I don't know who I'm talking to today, but I know you're out there. I know I was there where you feel alone and isolated, and the feeling is that the problems that you have today are 100% unique, and nobody will understand them. If they actually knew who you were, they would run away screaming, and it would be a dumpster fire. That's how I felt. I felt that if I were to go to anybody with what was really going on, they would run away screaming from the dumpster fire. That was my soul. It's a bit of a lonely existence. Then, what kind of ends up happening with that is I chased success and monetary reward and I brought a lot of people along with me, and buile communities and built some foundational elements, but I want to stick to the isolation part. What happens when people finally get together, when you share that thing that you think people are going to run away from instantly when you share that, I've done that. I've done the data, I've done the research for you. I've AB tested the data 100% of the time, if you open up and share that thing, nobody will run away from you. In fact, they will end up sharing something about themselves that they had not previously shared with somebody. What happens is you move from isolation into a new realm completely, which is acceptance. That happened for me, and that happened for several others. First, I wanted to do it with 10,000 people 10,000 stories. I figured that was going to take about 10 years. That's a little over three stories a day, I couldn't do it alone. I had to train other storytellers. That's when podcasting came along. I've been training podcasters how to go out and facilitate these types of discussions and create their own network effects. Needless to say, we're gonna blow through that 10,000 mark in two and a half years. I had to think a little bit bigger, right. So today's mission is to work with the top 10 changemakers globally, and help 100 million people step out of isolation and into acceptance. So 100 million people that are thinking right now that no one wants to listen to their dumpster fire problems that everybody's going to run away from them, and they're keeping it all inside and chasing something external. I want to let you know that there's a different kind of path. A path to a much more fulfilled kind of life. I've seen it happen countless times. I don't want to preach like a holier than thou kind of person like I figured out the way this is for sure. Not an original concept for me. I actually got it from a 12 step recovery program when I was getting clean from drugs and alcohol where it literally says on step 12 after I've done all this work on myself, after I've gone through my inventory and made amends with the people that have hurt me and people that I've heard and stayed sober for over a year. Then it says on the last step, go and help other people do the same thing. So that's all I'm trying to do.

Russ Johns 6:50
Yeah. You bring up several great points that I want to kind of dive into a little deeper in the isolation piece and where it really hits home to a lot of people is, right now we're going through some global changes. We're going through some dynamics that are, out of our control. The only thing we have control over is what we do and how we react to things. I think sharing those emotions, sharing those reactions are really open and honest. We're not alone in our feelings. There's other people working through very similar things. When you have the opportunity to share those stories, and kind of expand on those ideas, it really opens up that connection, that idea that I am not alone. We're all connected. If you're connecting 100 million people with different challenges and different use cases, if you will, different emotional, different intellectual conversations, different community problems, whatever it happens to be, there are other people out there that are struggling through the same process that you may have already gone through, or you're going through. I think it's important for us as humanity, and also individuals in this, is why I get so excited about what you're doing. Once you start telling those stories, and you craft those elements and deliver them to the public, then all of a sudden, we all realize that we're connected and we're not that different from each other. We may have different opinions, and that's okay. The idea is that we all have the same story. We're all humanity. We're all human. We're all in it together. So rather than fighting each other and battling uphill, let's understand where the common goals are, and then produce amazing results with it. Sowhat's the process that you do to create these storytellers, help them along their journey?

Christopher Decker 9:15
Absolutely and Russ, I have to say that it's really nice being on the other end of the hot seat because what great facilitators do, like yourself, Russ, is they give others the space and permission to share what they've always wanted to but maybe haven't been given that space or permission, yet that little red, live button does something magical

Russ Johns 9:53
You've got the button man. Pull it out of ya. I want to know what's in the mind of Chris right now.

Christopher Decker 10:01
Exactly. Here it is...going through trauma, abuse, neglect all the list of things that could impact you later in life from early childhood. I went through those things. Right now, I'll spare the actual details. There will be another episode, but that, for me what that developed was an antagonist mindset. I like the evil genius mindset, the global domination mindset. Me versus the world. I'm going to show you and make so much money that you can't touch me or hurt me or harm me and I'm going to go do whatever I want. Dare I say, the worst possible manifestation, where it's very narcissistic existence. I want it to be like Mark Zuckerberg walking in and wearing the hoodie and saying you can't touch me because I have all this money and scorched earth. I can just burn whatever bridge I want. It's not gonna matter. Yeah, honestly, that excited me like a pure gangster mindset. Pure gangster mindset looking up the Scarfaces of the world and if we're going to relate that to storytelling on any story, I was the bad guy. Although I personally felt like I was on a hero's journey, I was the hero. I was the Frodo Baggins saving the world. No, I wasn't. I was making the world worse. I was the bad guy. Going f from a self sort of like, hero's journey to okay. Then become a guide actually changed everything where when when I first sat in the podcast host seat, and I had that first person come into my office with those $30 Amazon microphones and a Logitech C 290 and horrible lighting. It did not matter. Something changed when the story no longer was mine and it was someone else's. The switch flipped instantly. I was no longer the hero in my own story. It was no longer, ook at me in this narcissistic mindset. It was no longer me versus the world, the gangster in the hot seat. It was, I am a guide to share these life changing, break out of isolation moments into acceptance moments from other people and I'm here to share it with you, the audience you're sitting in the room with us today. You get to be a part of this. I'm going to go put on the armor and and I'm going to wield the sword and go to battle for you, my friends and bring you the information that you need, at whatever cost. That was the change.

Russ Johns 13:14
It's amazing and I would almost take it one step further, Chris. I don't know if you can see this or not, but it's that epiphany you receive when you find out what you're really truly meant to be. Because we have this idea of what we're supposed to do and sometimes it's a seed we plant and sometimes it's a part of a nurture program that we grew up around. The idea that things are supposed to be a certain way or not always how we end up being because there are times where we have to have enough experience where we can actually relate to what it is we're doing it. It's almost like I always relate things to music. It's like when there's that groove going, and you're saying, I'm in the groove and I know that this is where I was meant to be, and this is what I'm doing. This is the only thing I need to do in order to survive or thrive. Then the switch turns, and then you're saying, everything else can fall by the wayside. If I can continue to do this, I know that this is something important. This is going to be a legend. This is going to be my legacy. I think that that's what I hear you saying is, you had this attitude, which fell away when you found out what you wanted to do and what was your goal and your your niche in life. Is that a fair assessment?

Christopher Decker 14:50
That is absolutely a fair assessment. I'll bring it back even and I am so certain that this is true. It may be an unpopular opinion so, sorry world. At 13, I had a media professor lab, Vince Campi, Milliken Middle School. Vince, if you are somehow listening to this, thank you. Because Vince saw that I wanted to learn what he had to teach. Instantly, he was teaching me how to put titles on Premiere Pro videos, how to add music, how to create animations in Flash, and saw that I would spend my recess and lunch and after school just pouring into this. I decided to sort of, show me extra, show me next, show me new and he saw that I had this aptitude for creation and creation in the digital space. I remember during a parent/teacher conference, my adopted guardian at the time, looked at him and asked him, this all seems like a lot of fun, but can he make a career in it? He said, as sure as anything, yes. So at 13 I technically knew exactly what I should be doing in life and proceeded to spend the next decade trying out other things that were not what I was gifted at and cultivated from that age, moving forward, completely like full immersion. I imagine where that could have gone. I don't want to live a life of regret. I still have plenty of time on this earth. Thank you God. However, how many other 13 year olds out there maybe even younger, know exactly what they're gifted at? And could start making an impact today?

Russ Johns 16:56
Yeah, it's absolutely true. I'll also add a new dimension to this conversation to Christopher. Because there's a piece that we think we want. This is why enjoying the journey is so critical to a lot of people that think, oh I'll be happy when I get here, or I'll be happy when I get there or I'll be happy when I make a million dollars or 10 million or 100 million, then I'll be happy. I think a lot of people miss the point of, if you enjoy the journey and you learn through the experience of what it is you're going through, every piece of that information, every element that you go through each and every corner, you turn, you're learning something that will play in your life in the future. It's either going to be good or bad. It's not necessarily good or bad, but it's an experience, right? It's on the range of how do I feel about what am I doing about this? When we take responsibility for how we look at our outcomes, it's like, okay, I can do good or I can do better. When we do as my friend Wendy would say, we can do well by doing good. When you're helping other people, it just seems like abundance never runs out. There's always an opportunity there. There's always something that's going to come up, and we're going to be able to produce results. When you love and enjoy the journey, and you love and enjoy what you're doing and it's out to help others, it's so much more gratifying. It feeds the soul. It feeds the environment and feeds everything around us. I just think it's an important mission for us to discover something that we love to do every single day and continue to do it. I think I see that Iin you and what you're doing and I just applaud and encourage you to continue to pursue it.

Christopher Decker 19:04
Can I give your listeners today a scientific metric for this?

Russ Johns 19:11
Sure. Okay,

Christopher Decker 19:16
This state of what you're feeling, quite literally in the moment, is the quality of your life. If you're feeling grateful, sadness, fear, they can't really exist in that moment because you're too busy being grateful. Grateful is beautiful. Love is beautiful. kindness, compassion. I got a whole list right here I can share with you. The best indicator of the path not to be on is if the the the fruits of that labor are anger, resentment, bitterness, sadness. If you're spending most of your day in those, that is warning lights flashing, like, get out, danger Will Robinson.

Russ Johns 20:00
Run away. Run away.

Christopher Decker 20:02
Run away. I'm telling you, it's a litmus test if it works every time and then take an honest look at what you're feeling right now. What is the predominant emotion? That can change by you. You may have to clean house a little bit. You might need some spring cleaning on your heart. Let's be honest, you might have to call a few people and say, I'm sorry that you don't want to.

Russ Johns 20:33
Get real. Get real.

Christopher Decker 20:34
Yeah, you may need to clean house a little bit, but once you're in that zone of genius, like Russ is talking about, that area that you were shaped to serve, not the area that people are shaped to serve you because I remember what it was like for me to be the narcissist wanting everybody to do something for me. I remember that. Flip that because I'm telling you that path only leads to the anger sadness, resentment, bitterness. It doesn't work. It does not work. It literally ends in death. Accelerated death. I thought I was gonna die at 40. Flipping that to serving others will develop peace, gratitude, joy, kindness, all the things that I'm telling you. The quality of life is exactly how you're feeling right now. That's it. That's what I believe. I hope something resonates with you. I don't know who I'm talking to right now, but I know I'm talking right to you.

Russ Johns 21:38
Well, here I'll give you an example because I just want to give a shout out to some of the people in the pirate community. Michael Evans. Hey Russ. How are you doing? Thank you for being here. Lance is here in the room, good morning, Russ. Lance says to Christopher, congrats on your steps through recovery. Paolo, hello pirates and Hiett Ives from Houston, says good to be here. We've got Lori Knudsen, I tried joining on LinkedIn but when I went to your profile, there wasn't an option to click the posts. Well, I probably got banned. (laughs) There's always a challenge, right? Kenyatta Turner says, good morning. Thank you so much. Good morning. How are you? Hey, speaking of LinkedIn and Kenyatta, on the 17th we have an event coming up that will be shouting out a little bit more about and I just want to invite you because it's gonna be a special event that we're brewing up. Kon is here. Kon is an awesome individual. He's also a pirate if you're not connected. You should probably connect. He says, good morning Russ and Christopher. Ahoy. Pirates. David Jones. Good morning, Russ. Thank you so much for being here. Kon say, my daughter has known from the age 5 that she wants to be a storyteller and a digital animator. We have supported and encouraged her. She is now a freshman in one of the best programs in the country for 3d animation.

Christopher Decker 23:11
Wow.

Russ Johns 23:12
That's fantastic. The opportunities that can be found in storytelling itself, let alone 3d animation, is amazing.

Christopher Decker 23:24
You have won at parenting.

Russ Johns 23:27
Yeah. Won, Yes. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Lance says, you are both amazing. Great show. Thank you so much. He says, great show. Then Foley. Foley is going to be on the show tomorrow. She's military. She's going to be talking about some of the things that we're going through right now. Thank you, Chris, for being open and raw enough to share your bruises and cuts with us to grow. Thank you so much, Foley. I'm looking forward to our episode tomorrow. Lori says, LinkedIn is consistently wonky.

Christopher Decker 24:05
I agree.

Russ Johns 24:07
I can't disagree with that. Lance says, maybe you're wearing nice shoes, too. So nice shoes in show. Thanks, Lance. The whole point of this, Chris, is we're all going through something. Sometimes our scars are not seen. Sometimes our bruises are not shared. I think a lot of people are looking to heal through association. That's looking for the community that we can actually relate to and say, am I the only one feeling this way? And the answer is positively, absolutely, no. There are other people out there that are going through similar journeys, loss, losing your job or losing a family member or, breaking a hip or, failing in business. This not knowing what to do next or feeling like you're not succeeding in what you're accomplishing or you're attempting to accomplish or actually succeeding and not knowing what to do with the success. It hits us at all levels at all times for everyone, at some point in time. I just encourage you to reach out, connect with Chris. He's a storyteller and we're doing very similar things. I've got the #PirateSyndicate that I'm growing and I want to help other stories emerge from that. Chris, where do they find you? Where do people track you down and what's the best way for them to connect with you and get engaged and involved?

Christopher Decker 25:52
Absolutely. So I'm going to give you all my personal cell phone number. Send me a text, give me a call. If you are one of those people that feel like you're succeeding, but you're like, is this really it? I can't believe there's not more to life. Give me a call. If you're down and in the dumpster fire and you feel like there's no way out and you're completely isolated, I want you to give me a call, especially. So my personal cell phone number is 949-748-0504. 949-748-0504. If you're up here, or you're down there, that's exactly where you should be. And I would like to speak with you.

Russ Johns 26:48
I thank you for doing that. Thank you for the outreach. For those of you that don't know, Chris and I have been on a couple of opportunities to have conversations like this and I really encourage you to, if you're feeling like you need something, but you don't know what it is, just reach out to people. Also, as an FYI, September is Suicide Prevention Month. A lot of people right now are going through some challenging moments. There's some challenging things that are taking place in the world. I've talked a lot about being resilient and building up your resiliency and part of that process is connecting with people, making sure you have somebody that you're accountable to, make sure that you're connected with somebody that's going to come and follow up and say, Russ, you need to get your stuff together. Put it together, get it in a pile and make sure that you have it done. This is important and I if you're not in a mastermind or you're not in a group or you're isolating, I encourage you to step outside and make those adjustments in your life and talk to people like Chris and share a story or two. Just have a conversation because it's so important for us to work together right now. more than any other time in history, in my opinion. So Chris, what's next for you? What's on the horizon? What's the next step for you?

Christopher Decker 28:32
So within year one of this particular business that I'm doing, I want to change how b2b sales are done. I think modern day sales has created a cynical market. I want to change that completely by training. You're an entrepreneur, you're a salesperson, so let's just get that out of the way. If you're in any position in life, you're selling something, right? So I want to teach people that there's a different way to sell and it comes from changing the definition of selling to service and having an ethical persuasion mindset instead of just trying to jam a product down people's throats like we're talking about. We are entering an age of authenticity, on our planet, in our world. If you can't catch up to authenticity, you will be left in the dust. I'm telling you right now, if you cannot catch up, you will be left in the dust. There is no returning to our old way. It's not going to happen. They call it the new normal. It is absolutely true. If nothing, you're not going back. There is no back. We do not have a time machine. We haven't invented that yet. I just saw the movie Tenet. It is trippy as heck, but we don't have that technology yet.

Russ Johns 29:58
If that's not a teaser, I don't know what it is. I totally agree with you. I think a lot of people, if you base your future on relationships, authenticity, and the idea that you can serve people, I think that's an incredibly powerful combination. So what's the process? What's the process growth?

Christopher Decker 30:29
The process by which to do that is, one, learning how to invite people into your world. This is a process of self discovery and self awareness. Now, if you're like me, you feel like if you were like me back in my narcissistic, evil genius, take over the world, make a bunch of money. The idea of somebody fully understanding you and you fully understanding yourself means that you're going to lose your competitive edge, you're going to become more weak. I will tell you right now, that is absolutely not the case because the person with the fewest blind spots wins every single time. That's from Keith Cunningham. Yeah, examining those blind spots, having some help and some guidance and someone who cares enough to say, dude, that that was no bueno. To have some people like that in your life, who are willing to call you out on your nonsense. Instead of the people that work for you, that are only going to agree with your ideas and say yes, and they're gonna say great job. Seriously, if you are lying to people that are just working for you, you're not going to get real objective feedback. I'm telling you right now if money is going from your bucket to theirs, they are going to say whatever it takes to continue that money flowing.

Russ Johns 31:56
Exactly. Well, I really want to give a shout out here because Foley says, Chris, you're already my favorite person for opening up your heart like that. Keep being wonderful. Thanks, Foley. Lance says, I met Russ 13 years ago in Houston and I loved the selection of hats. I always have I always have hats out in the public eye. Are you keeping up with adding to your collection? Yes, absolutely. Above that, I love intelligence and wit! You're a great inspiratio! Thank you so much, Lance, we've got to catch up some point in time. Foley says, for those that are listening on the podcast, I love your recognition of authenticity being a key performance indicator in this day and age. Thank you for sharing this with the network as a huge takeaway. Thank you so much, Foley. Kon says, problem solving through buying facilitation, as I call it. That's fantastic. It's like you said, we're all selling, we're all in this world to either sell an idea, sell an ambition or sell a product or service and when you're working together to find a solution to an outcome, it's always much easier for us to discover the outcome together. I think that's part of the process, as well. So anyway, Chris, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you and look forward to many more conversations and connections. As I said before, if you're listening or you're watching the replays or you're listening on the podcast, or you go check out russsjohns.com/piratebroadcast and look up all of the episodes, we've got over 240 episodes now with a range of topics and subjects in conversations, just like this. I really encourage you to reach out and connect with Chris. Make sure that you're doing what you can to open up, tell your story, share your mission, share your ideas and allow somebody to call you out on it when you're bumping in the corners and not sure where to go next, because that really helps. That really encourages a productive outcome rather than one that's a dumpster fire, as Chris would say. So, thank you so much for being here. As always, #kindnessiscool, #smilesarefree and you #enjoytheday. Take care, Chris.

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