Interview: Chris Delaney

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:00:00

Welcome to the most valuable fucking show you're going to listen to all week.

Chris Delaney:: 00:00:05

But helping people used to be something I did to my detriment, developed a network there found it, found a great skillset with developing networks, connecting people, to gather, helping them grow their businesses. Then you get that one person who comes up there who says I'm an on fuck on stage, but they're not supposed to. And you're like, yes,

This. Is. Unfuck My Business.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:00:30

Welcome back to unfuck my business show in place of your normal host crystal Laney. I am Robin sales and I am substituting today with the wonderful and not as grumpy as usual. Mr. Jenks GenX, how are you today?

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:00:47

You know, there's a magic to mimosas that helps spring grumpiness down.

So I'm, I'm good. Very good.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:00:55

Wonderful. So the reason I am here in the host position today is because our interviewee for today is the man who normally sits in the host chair, the esteemed leader of our Merry band of misfits. Mr. Chris, Delaney, it will be our joy to interview him today. So, uh, without a whole lot of a do, I will say that I was very much looking forward to leading this interview today because Chris is one of those rare individuals that cannot help, but suck you into his orbit.

He has personality for days and an energy that is nothing short of magnetic. And I know I am one of many who would say something similar that like, once you're in the atmosphere of that energy, you can't help, but get excited and you can't help, but get involved even though I don't always know what we're doing.

I just keep saying yes to all of Chris's crazy ideas because when one of them sticks, it's going to be nothing short of revolutionary. So on that note, I will say hello and welcome to crystal Laney.

Chris Delaney:: 00:02:03

There are a few moments in life that are as magical is when you find out when you were born, why you were born and then being a guest on the unfuck, my business show.

So I've now crossed this off my bucket list. Thank you so much for having me, Jay

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:02:15

Shetty, literally just posted that to his Twitter

verbatim.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:02:21

So you, you get to be in the hot seat today

Chris Delaney:: 00:02:25

slightly, but, um, you know, enough alcohol early in the morning will kill that. So it's fine.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:02:30

Am I the only one sober for this interview?

Chris Delaney:: 00:02:33

I dunno. I think it's kind of a joke. I'm I'm actually pretty, pretty pretty Tober right now. It's October right now.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:02:40

Well, we're going to have some fun today. I want to start by talking about. Your history, the road from there to here, because even though I've heard you tell the condensed version of your journey, a couple of times, I still find it really interesting and really fascinating.

And I think it says a lot about why you continue to be successful in the endeavors that you undertake. And so as someone who on paper has gone from food service to car rental sales, to insurance sales and Ben across multiple States and in multiple States of economic fortune, would you please give us the, as reader's digest, as you can do version of Krista Laney's career journey.

Chris Delaney:: 00:03:30

Kind of sounds like I'm in the witness protection program. It's like you worked in all these industries at different places and we don't quite know where you live or what you actually do, but, um, Yeah, I have the strong belief that I'm okay, too philosophical. Your story really is what makes you, who you are.

And once you understand that you can understand yourself better. And how that pertains to business is I believe that you are your business. So the condensed version to kind of share is I grew up in upstate New York. I was a son of a single mom who raised me with what was then stage two breast cancer.

They thought. And we found out about 15 years later, it was actually staged for the entire time. That's still didn't finish till another six years later. So at 21 years old, after, after witnessing that, being with her being one of the primary cares with her, I was with her when she passed away. And why that matters is that was my only parent.

So my thought process behind any kind of a safety net. Was never there. So I had to be very resourceful. I did do a lot of things that people would find uncomfortable because I had to figure shit out. So the moment my mom passed away, there was this prevailing thing of like, okay, you're you were supposed to go to school.

I got into great schools, but instead I went and worked because work provided me a sense of progress. And I became a flat-out fucking workaholic because I worked in the service industry. And even though I was dealing with severe PTSD and anxiety, I was like 160 pounds, six foot four. I could barely eat because I obviously grief and whatever, going to work and putting a smile on my face and meeting people and building that relationship provided some sense of calm for me.

It was a really great place for me to be, which is super interesting because I never saw myself in any kind of service industry before I want to be in the military. And, um, that, that, that industry raised me. And so I got to do anything and everything and fast, casual, fine dining, learn wine, learned food, and met some amazing people and started relating to them.

I was that guy who was closing the restaurant that managers hated because again, a two hour conversation with somebody who was like, give me a call later. And, um, you know, that was always right led from so that customer service kind of thing. But I also viewed as being an entrepreneur, I rent space in your restaurants to serve your food, but they're my customers.

And I took that very seriously. Well, the service industry is kind of tough when you're, when you want to get married and be a big kid and everything else. And so. Leaving that industry was, was a call to going into the corporate world. You mentioned car rental sales. I worked with global fortune 500. It's the publicly traded one.

If you don't know which company that is, one of them just went bankrupt. So that might filter you down to the right choice, worked with them in upstate New York. I'm from in the Albany area and led a sales team to record numbers, um, in an area that our VP actually said, there's no fucking way these guys ever break beyond this certain threshold.

We crushed it. I worked with, um, folks in and out of snow. Solved a lot of problems. I got promoted very quickly, went down to Savannah, Georgia of all places. This Yankee did where I was called a Yankee every single day. And I had the worst year and a half of my entire life professionally. And I talk about that very openly.

It was really big culture shock. I struggled with the corporate stuff. I'm very much a challenger. They would tell me just not to not put my line on during calls. I would always challenge no matter what. And that's just not the fit for me and left there year and a half later, like I said, really, cause there was some unethical shit going on.

ob in October or September of: 2016

And the other thing is, is that it's such a small town in the Permian basin where they filmed Friday night lights for the film buffs that if you fucked over somebody, you were blacklisted. And that's where I got into insurance sales because I called 267 places of employment. I got a call back from the duck and I learned how to be an insurance agent, but more importantly, that put me in a position to be commissioned only.

And I was hungry physically and financially, and really focused on connection. First shared my story, shared my fuck up. Start doing Facebook lives, building a personal brand intuitively just because I wanted to create my own space. Developed a network there found it found a great skill set with developing networks, connecting people together, helping them grow their businesses.

And the rest was history and took those skillsets and applied them to the areas that were interested in, in coaching and consulting and started working with businesses in the small business space, helped them with employee benefits and operations and strategy, but I've always just had this thought process of collaboration over competition.

And that's what led to UFM B and the folks that you know, you and you and jinx being here. And I'm very thankful every time. And we're just kind of starting, we're just getting started in a timeframe where people are very fearful and I think there's no time, better than now to get out there and to lead with that mentality of collaboration.

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:07:59

When I first met you and, and you know, the first couple of times that I heard your pitch, it very much sounded heavily like a lot of other coach pitches that I've heard, I think, and over the course of the last year or so, I've definitely seen you pivoting more into a business leader slash consulting type role.

You've heard me talk many times about some of my issues and hangups with the coaching industry at large. Can you talk a little bit about why that's been a pivot for you as well?

Chris Delaney:: 00:08:26

Yeah, that's a great question. So to be honest with you, I think the coaching industry is I've seen it. And when I learned about an industry, I researched, I explore, I fell out of love with the construct of the industry and people think through things based on what they know to be true from their past.

And so in the coaching space, I called it coaching is for one, people could recognize it immediately of what I did functionally. And I found myself doing work where I'd lead with business. I'd help people with their business and we'd open up. We started talking about relationships and these are areas I explored for myself, so I could help people through those processes.

But what I found was because the industry is so heavily predicated on a lot of copywriting and marketing. And a lot of psychological assessments to find the right client, just to get them to buy that right thing. And to be Frank with you as a strategy one-to-one coaching doesn't scale your time, which is an interesting to me, I took a huge step back.

And to be very honest with you, coaching is still something I do with the partners I work with and people who contact me or I work with on a consulting level. But I had some experiences as well, working with people and getting really in deep with people. Cause I can't not go all in. And it was a really messy experience for me.

And I couldn't detach myself away from the emotions I felt towards the clients I was working with. And that was a really big challenge for me. I couldn't just take money from somebody and then it just be a transaction. Then I started asking myself what I do every day, where can my gifts best be used?

And when COVID hit and January, actually this year, I was like, I can help more people in business because I just realized Holy shit, people in startup spaces have no idea what we did in the corporate world. And it could really help accelerate their business. People had no idea how to develop talent, no idea how to create the strategy.

And my brain always worked in ways to make that, that complex stuff simple and accessible to people. And the market responded this year. And that provided me the insight to know that it was like, this is where I need to be right now. And coaching may be something down the road. I don't know. But you know, I, I, I don't have the time for it right now, and it's not where I'm best used.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:10:18

So, Chris, one thing I've always said to people, especially when people are afraid to identify themselves as an expert, Is that expertise is nothing more than your ability to take your experience from the past and apply it to the future. And I think you're such a, an excellent case study of that because some of your experience would seem so disconnected.

And yet you found the common threads and why, what you learned over here in the restaurant industry is perfectly applicable in say, car rental sales, right. Do you have a particular process that you go through in order to determine like, Oh, this equals that. And here's how I can apply what I learned over here to doing this over there.

Chris Delaney:: 00:10:57

I I've had a struggle with trying to understand this because I ask people a lot and I'm trying to, I'm trying to understand more about people process and learn and take things in. But the way my brain has naturally worked is I always see what seems to be disconnected information. And somehow it all makes sense.

tion, what does it look like?: 1224

And that's how, what I use today. A lot of that work is stuff that I give people to do, especially leaders who are struggling to grow beyond their position, or, you know, people see these isolated incidents and look at it as cause and effect. I see it as relationship. It's all connected. So the way my brain works is I like to see things from the end first and then work my way backwards.

So I'm always solving problems with a question in mind and then starting backwards. So when it comes down to breaking down like a financial plan or breaking down a strategy for a business, I'm always asking myself, what is the end look like for now? And what does it mean for me? And then I go through a process of asking myself three questions.

Is it going to be fun? Is it going to make money and does it help people in that order? Because for me, in order for me to show up the way that I do and I get it, I have a lot of energy. I have to have fun. Cause when I'm, when I'm miserable, my energy is just, it is bad, but it's least effective. I'll be that outspoken person being like this sucks.

You know what I mean? It's just human nature. And then the second thing with money is I had to do a lot of work around this idea of. Mindset and philosophy around what money is, what it does its role in my life, so that I can understand that I should be compensated for what I do. And how do I get compensated then marrying that philosophy with a rational approach of, okay, these equations that I pulled out now, fair market value.

How do we assign that? How do we look at margin? How do we make this applicable? So I believe in the price and then the third thing, helping people was a struggle for me because. I believe in humanity. I believe in people I'm very optimistic. I always lead from a place that people don't know what they just don't know.

And it's my job. My energy is such that I get people to do stuff they otherwise wouldn't do because they know I'm in their corner and I can have their back. And I can be that strong presence while they're fucking up and failing. Cause it's like, failure is amazing. So it's that, that those different tweaks in there, but helping people used to be something I did to my detriment, because sometimes you try to save people.

And they don't want to be saved. They just want to be told what to do. And that's really tricky. So I try to lead with trying to understand, but it's getting harder and harder in today's world, but, um, I have really smart people around me, way smarter than me to help me with that. I'm going to go a little more hardball,

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:13:35

just because I can, uh, I've talked many times about manufactured authenticity as a marketing tactic, and you actually in a recent conversation, brought up an interesting point of manufactured vulnerability as a marketing tactic.

The question to me then is first of all, how do you identify your own bullshit? And second of all, what do you recommend to other people and identifying their own

Chris Delaney:: 00:13:56

bullshit first and foremost, lead with the idea that most things that we say are bullshit. And be aware of these things. Cause I think first and foremost, we have to have a conversation about judgment and judgment's really tricky because we have a lot of these constructs, religion out politics, all the shit we're caught up in.

And of course, don't, don't think about social media. That's constantly vying for your attention. And we're trying to put the perfect picture in the avatar out there. Part of my journey as an individual is the question. And I lead with questions all the time. How can I be a spiritual being and understand that part of me that has no preference?

Because if you listen to like Ekar tole or, you know, anybody, they say have no preference, the Buddha way, you know, the middle path, then there's the human being side of me. There's like fucking a, I have passionate desire to live. And those two might be a conflict a lot. And my human side might say some really passionate shit.

And then my spiritual side is like, what did you learn from that? And I have to listen to that conversation and be able to sit back and have that discussion. So. When it comes down and manufactured, here's what I feel. And I'm going to say, feel very intentionally. I feel in the, in the conversation around discernment when it's being manufactured, because I think when you're so used to recognizing it in yourself, you can spot it and others very quickly.

And unfortunately I've seen it in the marketing industry and especially in the service-based businesses where authenticity and vulnerability is reduced down to a template of copy. And you can tell if you're paying attention, like, eh, this doesn't sit well with me. It's like the really polished speaker upstage.

You should be killing it on stage. And then you're just like, eh, I don't get this. This kind of sucks. And you're like, great job, dude. Then you get that one person who comes up there who says, Oh, I'm an on fuck on stage when they're not supposed to. And you're like, yes, like, you know, it. And so it's a feeling thing, and it's also trusting yourself really, really strongly.

So I trust myself really well. And I also surround myself again with people that are strong enough to call my bullshit and challenge me. And I asked people, I asked Danielle challenged me, please. Last night I asked her, I said, I'm, I'm being lazy right now. I don't care if you have to punch me, slap me, push me whatever I need your help pushing through this.

And I think that's important because I think the people you keep around you make or break your experience of life.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:16:03

So I want to piggyback off of that because the three of us in particular, you jinx and I have had conversations about. Very widely popular universally known public figures who preach a story of started from the bottom and now here.

Right. And they preach this sort of like realness and w you know, telling it like it is when we know that that's not the actual story. Right. And so, so immediately for somebody like me, who can see through. The fake, vulnerable marketing and the bullshit right now, I just instantly distrust you because I know that what you're deploying right now is a tactic and it's a tactic.

That's not actually in alignment with your actual story. Whereas there's dudes like you, who you could easily, like I see you up there on those same stages one day in the future yet. Your story is real. Right. And so I've always wondered. Does that piss you off? Does it bother you that those guys are out there selling bullshit when you, you have the real story or do you just not entertain that

Chris Delaney:: 00:17:18

question?

And the honesty answer is it's something that I'm plagued with because I have this level of, um, I would say, you know, Danielle would define it as righteous indignation, where I think about this stuff, a lot of like protecting people and trying to be a champion for people. And I think about it because I see the stories and I see the, the disparity behind the scenes and I ask myself the question, does this person, is there, are they employing a level of manipulation because they know to employ the manipulation?

Or is this just what they know. And I'm trying to become less judgmental about this because my natural proclivity as a passionate person is, is to judge and then also fight. And then I had to learn like, does that do anything for me? My family, and for the people that support me because I can just be a complainer.

Right? My energy is such that I can either be driving the innovation or I can just be like, yeah, this sucks. This guy's an asshole. So it is tricky because I, I, my heart breaks when I meet somebody and I've met very many of these people, it's archetypal. I've spent 30, 40 K of courses on this person. I love them.

I'm going to their mastermind this weekend. It's three days is 10 K. I'm trying to raise the funds. And then I asked the question, like, why do you follow this person? And then I get their story. And the story says something to the effect of after quitting my job or going to college and dropping out because I wanted to pursue my passion.

I built a seven figure coaching business, and you can too. And my brain goes to, that's not how that works. You know, there has to be a level of understanding of like what the process is. My brain, when you asked me like where my brain goes to, when somebody says, Hey, build a platform, Hey, build a business in my mind, the tab opens and all the instructions pop out.

And so when I think about somebody saying a seven figure business, my brain goes, yeah. Okay. What's the real story because stories, facts telling stories sell, right? So the story gets people emotional. And I think where I'm at right now is I can be best use of helping people learn to walk through their decisions and to understand what they're actually deciding on, because what it boils down to, I think is when it comes to the story piece, again, I trust myself and hold myself at really high values.

I'm not really necessarily worried about that at all. I think it's time for me and my iteration of life to be the contrast. So I can be best served out there being and doing rather than complaining. And that's something that I, to my birthday last weekend, two weekends ago, I said to myself, get your shit together and be contrast.

That's my that's my rallying cry to me.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:19:36

That struck me as a differentiator for you too, because it just like the example that you pointed out, you know, I, you know, was broke on my brother's couch and then I woke up with a genius idea and built a seven figure business. Well, they're conveniently leaving out.

Tons of information that's relevant to how they built that seven figure business. Whereas you're literally like, no, here's more of the information. Like, let me not just give you 10 steps. Let me give you, you know, 10,000 steps. So you can see exactly how much work it takes and plan and a lot for it. And so I think you're.

That's the contrast is you're filling in all of the convenient gaps that others are leaving behind, which is refreshing. And which is one of the reasons why we're here on this show is to fill in those gaps for the folks that are listening. And I think it's fair to say that it's intentional. So why is this such a huge word for you?

I mean, it's literally like sprinkled throughout your bio. I can't get through a conversation with you without you using the word. It is more than just a word for you. So talk to us why intentional is so important, such a big part of you and your brand.

Chris Delaney:: 00:20:50

So when I think about the word intention, I like to borrow from dr.

Joe Dispenza's language of intention, uh, vision being the language of the brain, and then the emotion, the feeling catalyzing that with the feelings of the heart. And so when I started thinking about what I naturally do, I'm a dreamer I'm, I'm naturally somebody who has the ability to dream and put things together.

But I think from the basis of it, once I woke to the idea of not being woke AF by the way, it's totally different. Uh, being woke means you won't face your shit, but being awakened means you're going through it fucking going through that whole entire process. But once I started opening up my eyes to asking myself a very clear question, and it was right after my divorce and I sat there and an empty apartment and it was a cold dark night.

And then my book idea came and it became a millionaire. No, I'm just kidding. I had to come to grips with the idea of, I never once ever asked myself what I wanted. I had no idea what to do next. I was paralyzed and all I knew to do was work. Like my natural proclivity was like, go work, find a job, keep working your face off.

And I was like, dude, I'm 30 years old. And I started understanding this concept of how can you go anywhere? You have no idea where you're going. You haven't even chosen. And I started recognizing that. And then I became obsessed with learning about this process of how we learn. Right. And still you dr.

Maslow his ability to talk about conscious learning. I started looking at learning professional or looking at all this stuff and seeing the interplay behind the concept of building an intention of visioning your minds. And actually it doesn't matter if it's going to happen the way it's going to happen, but beginning to feel like you have some kind of participation with this life.

And so I started thinking about things as opposed to waking up every single day saying what is on my to do list. It was like, what's on my to-do list. And I started out by saying, okay, I'm meeting with this client tomorrow. How do I want to show up? I want to show up prepared, succinct, and also in control and let it rip and was interesting.

It was like Ron Popeil set it and forget it. I showed up and it happens. And I was like, what is this? So it was like a conscious conversation with myself to really try to understand, like, what's really at play here right now. And so now it's, it's a huge passion of mine because I believe people don't choose their circumstances.

I think they wake up to their circumstances and they, they get feedback of what's next. Where do you want to go? What do you want? So now you're participating in life instead of being stuck in the, in the swell of, and it sounds like airy fairy bullshit. But my mission in this lifetime is to ground that with the data and the data is coming along here to help us understand like what this looks like, especially in the medical world, especially in technology.

I think there's a lot going on there.

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:23:20

You're a strong personality. We share that in common. And so it's not uncommon at all for us to offer strong opinions. Um, and especially in the moments, you know, during the heat of a passionate conversation or something, sometimes we may lean in a little hard and either cause offense or, I mean, let's call it what it is just flat out, be wrong in the moment.

How do you. Come back on that. How do you reconcile with that? How do you identify that for yourself? And then how do you bring that back around? Because I know that, you know, like with the sincere intention, you're always looking to, uh, and I've seen it personally, I'm looking to sort of a mend, a bridge or resolve a conflict or something like that.

What's your approach to shit. Um, that was probably stated in a poor way, or I really kind of fucked that up. How do you approach that in your life?

Chris Delaney:: 00:24:11

I think one of the biggest lessons I've, I'm actively learning right now. This is not a done is I'm dealing with frustration. And I think frustration is like, I'm finding it to be an iteration of, of anger, which then itself is more of a manifestation of fear.

I think. And so as I'm kind of like journeying on this and trying to understand more, I feel like that fear is probably coming up because I'm, I'm doing things faster and bigger than I've ever done before. And it's natural for that fear to come up of like, well, hold on, why are these people following you?

Why would they be interested? What are you really doing? Like, these are things that aren't just a one and done conversation. It's like feedback from like, I do this in my life. It's evident now I'm getting that feedback. Is the integrity piece, your inner thoughts matching your external actions. When I come up upon like conflicts and stuff like that, my struggle was, and it still is to a point.

Sometimes I can get so passionate about something that I stopped listening. And the moment I stopped listening is where I'm in trouble, because that's where I it's, it's unconscious in that point in time, I have to be right in that moment. And what I've learned to do is trying to identify in my body how that comes up, cause I can feel it and trying to stop it and also realizing it's better for me in that moment to take a step back.

To physically walk away and just say again, it's going to take a time out and walk backwards. And I think sometimes like we've had the conversations around like, Hey, this probably isn't a good conversation a little bit. And also saying like, let's let's retreat for a second and come back. Cause I had to learn that retreat was just as powerful as advancing, but I like to be very honest, like when we have that conversation, I'll say like I fucked up, you know, and here's where it is.

And let's have that discussion. Like how does it fit in for us? But the relationships I also have. Start with us understanding, like, what are the ground rules? How do we communicate together? Like what does this look like? Especially in partnerships too. I think that's very, very important because that's gonna mitigate down the road, but will we argue in conflict?

Fuck. Yeah. Should you argue in conflict with strong other people? Fuck. Yeah. And I think that helps you understand the trigger as it comes up, but yeah, I mean, I'm fucking up in that all the time.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:26:07

So you have your finger in a lot of entrepreneurial pot, for lack of a better metaphor

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:26:15

tie. The metaphor is finger in the pie.

Chris Delaney:: 00:26:21

My

Robyn Sayles:: 00:26:21

entrepreneurial mix, my metaphor as I see fit. So as someone who has a lot of balls in the air, how's that for a metaphor. I would like to hear more about the inspiration behind and your idea for the future of try vibe, the clothing line, I've gotten to get a little sneak peek at, you know, some of the stuff behind that and some of the artwork.

And I think it's particularly cool. I think your mission behind it is particularly cool. So tell me a little bit about where that came from and where you see it going to.

Chris Delaney:: 00:27:02

So first and foremost, uh, tri vibe was like the brain child of one of our partners, Aaron Fogo, shout out to Aaron, who is our creative director.

And she is the most gifted illustrator artist I've ever met. Her gifts are, I will say this God-given and pretty exceptional. And when you meet exceptional people, your, your ideas begin to take form. You start having conversations. And then we were like, Hey, You can spread things very quickly through social media and also other stuff.

What could we do? And then we started discussing like t-shirts and clothing. Cause Aaron had a background in print on demand and stuff like that. And the conversation started and like many things, it was like, cool, it's launched tomorrow. So we launched right before COVID and our print on demand, partnership the bed.

Plus we had no clue what we were doing on the development side of things. And we had, you know, overseas developers, which I know jinx loves. And we were trying to get to our MVP and COVID happened. It was also partnered up with another business life on Shane that Danielle and I put together and spent over a year developing an Aaron was involved and we had just finished the website and the business model fell apart because COVID.

So we readdressed try vibe about three months ago and I started enjoying success, bringing leaders to the table. And so Jackie Makilah, who's been on the show before, uh, who has a strong background in content and writing and, and everything else came to the table. Jinx is on our board as well. And the idea was how can we develop an intentional lifestyle brand for the people who don't necessarily want to speak up, but want to have a symbol of what they feel inside externally?

And how can we begin to spread a message that is empowering and also a conversation starter. And how does somebody feel when they wear this clothing? Is it going to be like their sword and shield against the negativity and the, and the stuff? And then the other part of it was cool. What if we could connect them network with some of the biggest artists out there who were in the scene and talking about like manifesting an idea of a vision into an artist, painting like a real thing.

That was an idea, turning into a vision to a physical thing. And how can we really begin to focus on this? And it got really interesting because I've never ran a product based business before. So it was a really big challenge for me. So I was like, fuck. Yeah, let's do that. That sounds fun. And it's just been a lot of fun.

I mean, we see this being. A large endeavor. We have really big goals for our first year in business. We have a plan to soft launch in October, which should be after this has aired already, but we want these shirts in as many places as possible. The hoodies we want, we see other artists coming to the table.

We see other medium coming to the table as well, which is a lot of fun, but this is a business that we'll be involved in for a long time. Not necessarily something I would like to exit, but you know, if we come to that, that conversation, I think it could be a really strong endeavor. I think it's different than what's out there and I've never seen anything like it.

I think share

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:29:46

the value of not wanting entrepreneurial ventures to be at job. Right. You know, building businesses and trying to create new revenue streams and such really are a means to an end. Um, and we had that previous conversation with Victor Boulevard where we talked about, you know, the, the mindset of money.

Isn't about the money. It's not about the materials, it's about a representation of a certain kind of freedom. So, you know, knowing that essentially one of your biggest skills is again, similar to mine being a nexus or a connector of people. And then to having that mindset of, of not having entrepreneurship become a job, but really a key to having the ability to do what you want to do in life.

How, how, like, I know you have an underlying philosophy about the freedom of a business this way. Can you, can you talk about that a bit?

Chris Delaney:: 00:30:37

Yeah. So, I mean, it, it took a while for me to get to the core of this. But what I realized is is that we all get taught that when you start a business, your business should own your life.

And so your businesses, your life is built around your business. And I said, what would life look like if I did the opposite? And knowing that I'm the one theoretically in control of my actions, right. I can only respond to things. I began with that intention of like, what would be fun for me? What if I have focused in, on the industries, the niches, the things that I can serve.

And I think one of the most important things for me to understand is not judging myself for not being the best at follow through and execution. Because I a great entrepreneurs that I know have a vision and they put people together infrastructure to get it started. And then they nurse that thing together while some technicians who are really good at what they do, absolutely crush it and you can lead it towards that goal.

So once I got over that part of needing to be everything in all people and started having partnerships, I started seeing how much more fun it was to start developing teams of really smart, strong, competent people who were much smarter than me in the areas that I know shit about. And so when it comes to it being a job or not, it boils down to the challenge.

It boils down to the mission of what we're trying to accomplish. And at the end of the day, my prevailing belief is that the thing tying business together with everything else is human connection. Commerce is about how you communicate to the market, the market or people. If you treat them like people, then you'll begin to understand the why the house, the nuances, and be able to dive into different things.

And, you know, I think of human technology, right? We had a conversation about technology in one of our episodes, but I believe in this idea of, yeah, I can learn the technology, but why not find somebody who's really fucking gifted at that? Who loves doing it? And let's collaborate. Let's figure that out together.

Let's find the common ground. The idea of freedom for me is being able to first, I had to focus myself into the areas I'm good at know my core competencies and I don't get out of those core competencies unless I have to. And so I don't give opinions on things. I don't know. I don't try to build businesses.

I know nothing about, but I like to stay in my lane and have that discussion and find smarter people than me in there. And I think I apply that core competency to business models and stuff that I would find genuinely interesting. That'd be a lot of fun first, because if it's not fun, I Inn him. And when it stops being fun, we have to have a conversation of like, What's going on here.

We used to go out every once in a while, and now we're just kind of chilling at home. What are we doing? So that's kind of how I kind of tie that together. Again, it starts with what I'm looking for and that's what I look for. And I'll have what I want. That's my, that's my thought process, possibility of a consequence.

I'll have what I want. Let's go build this.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:33:06

So this whole show unfuck, my business evolved from your desire to bring a community of people together. You know, put together, um, a team of all-stars, if you will, to, to address the impact of COVID back in March. And we know some businesses are going to suffer, we know we have the collective knowledge to help them.

So how do we put together something where we can get access to them? They can get access to us, et cetera. So now it's evolved into 40 plus weeks later. You've directly helped. Dozens of businesses probably indirectly helped hundreds of businesses. You're involved with several of those businesses now helping them directly consulting, et cetera, taking them to the next level.

And then we've created, you know, this is the first of hopefully many forums where we're going to get to share this knowledge out wider. What is the thing that, uh, over the course of all that 40 weeks, hundreds of businesses, dozens of people that you've helped directly, what's the thing or things that you keep saying over and over and over again, that like, if it's the one fucking thing that anybody listens to in this show, what do you want?

The business owners out there to know?

Chris Delaney:: 00:34:19

So one of the questions I think that comes up a lot is knowing what you know. Now, if we were to start all over again, would you do the same business? That was one thing, because I believe in going back to the very beginning and we can always reset. So that's the first thing.

And that's, to me, boils down to a lot of people, get into businesses for the money and they create a job for themselves as what we know to do. So we take what we know, we create it for ourselves, you know, the E-Myth that whole thing. That's what they talk about. The person who's a technician. It starts a job to be a technician just paying themselves and it becomes a clusterfuck.

The second thing is knowing your numbers, that help you make informed decisions. So you can't make an informed decision unless you know why that number is what it is and how it relates to other things. And it's not saying, Hey, just look at your income statement as a way to manage your business, but it'll give you some good data on like where things are going.

So that's number two. The third thing is, you know, really going to be process oriented. I think. Many small businesses struggle because they don't get beyond the expertise or the energy or the ability of the owner. And that owner just doesn't have the understanding because they also got sucked into the vortex of the inertia of that business.

And they find themselves completely burnt out. And as a result, their families burnt out. And as a result, they don't see a good vision of the future. So being able to take that step back and being able to look at the business, understands the numbers, understand what processes we can use to replace that owner in the business.

And then also ask the question, like what, what did you envision for this to be in the first place? Was it going to be a lifestyle thing that has paid your bills? Was it going to be a company where are we at with this right now? Because a large part of it boils down to fear. I don't know how to adapt. I don't know what to do.

I'm sleeping. I'm going to bed late at night, thinking shit, I got to 18 hours tomorrow. My kid's got a birthday coming up. What do I do? And then you wake up in the morning. And the first thing you're thinking about is this thing I used to fucking love is slaving. Yeah. I hate this shit right. So I'm a firm believer in, in personal responsibility and being able to take a look at those three areas over and over and over again.

And there's plans that I use. There's, I'm a very process oriented for viability, for scale, for any of that stuff. But I think it boils down to what you wanted, the intention of starting the business in the first place. And just like any relationship, you should be able to have a come to Jesus conversation and be able to walk away with clarity and an action plan of what's next, because you can endure whatever happens.

You go bankrupt. You can, you can be just fine when it hits the credit and everything else, you can figure that shit out. So everything's, figureoutable in my world.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:36:44

I love it. And I've seen your spreadsheets. They're intense

and intentional. So my friend, you bring a sense of humor to a lot of this work. You've mentioned multiple times. If it's not fun, why the fuck am I doing it? But do you ever worry about the sheer volume of Dick jokes that you drop on a regular basis?

Chris Delaney:: 00:37:12

No.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:37:17

I said I was going to ask it and I could not ask it. I will say though, that I do actually. Uh, like as someone who could potentially be offended by that. Right. I do actually like it because it's show just a part of who you are and the people who engage in that humor with you, it's like, it's just become such a part of the community that you've built.

Right. So I ask a ridiculous question to get to a really solid, interesting point, which is. You have attracted a community of people around you who just wouldn't even think to take offense to any sort of that humor, that humor is welcomed. That humor is encouraged. You encourage people to acknowledge that like where people and we make jokes and we fuck things up.

And that's all a part of the people running these businesses. And if we don't acknowledge that, then like we're not being true and complete about who we are. And so I know that one of the benefits of being in your orbit is to enjoy the humor and the really ridiculous and really unexpectedly deep conversations that come along with it.

Do you take time to enjoy it?

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:38:27

I will say before he answers this, that when he reached out to me to talk about joining this effort, uh, one of his first questions was, do you enjoy mixing Dick jokes in

Chris Delaney:: 00:38:35

business with his, in his martinis? Um, Do I take time? That is one of my greatest struggles in my life, which is awesome because it gives me a chance to reflect on the areas that, that are, that aren't finished.

So, you know, recently, um, it was selfish, not self-imposed, it was actually imposed before days off of my birthday. And I hadn't take that much time off because quite frankly, I mean, if you, if you ask Danielle, what I think about, we talk about my brain consistently thinks about the people I work with. Like, I can't think about anything else.

It's just like when I go to bed, thinking about waking up, thinking about, because I believe in what I do and, and, and what I believe as a, as a whole. But I think about other people so much that I would get frustrated. Cause I was like, man, do people think about me the way I think about them? And I would end up in this cycle and I think it's important for you to understand this about yourself.

Of my energy is one of generation I give, I invite, I will be the one I call it lion or tiger energy. I have a lion energy. I go out tiger ambushes. And I go out seeking, I will ask, I will do. And I think I need to balance that out with being a lot, you know, and I think the next part of my life, I think about what life looks like when I can just have a presence versus having to do all the time.

And that's it. That's an interesting thing for me to think about because my ego tells me, you have to prove what you know. So when we hop into a conversation, I have to consciously ask myself the question, like, what's the value here? What are you doing? And if I don't, it could become really tricky. Chris asked me, like, how do you fuck up in, in conversations or drinks did.

And that's sometimes how it happens. I gotta be right. I gotta tell you what I know. Right. So that, that becomes a bit tricky, but yes, taking time to spend time with it. For sure. And with humor, I think it's important because when you've seen an intensity in life, like I have humor becomes that much more of a catalyst for the life experience.

And humor to me is one of those things where if people laugh and we're all laughing at a joke, it means we're fucking human beings. Don't be so perfect. You can't be relatable. I mean, if you can't turn the Tom Thompson Gore on as late as when ball hog, which is fucking hilarious. And he talks about, you know, who's Dick, I want to slam it a mailbox door 20 times.

And I just bust out laughing because I'm like, that's hilarious. That's how I unplug. Right. So I think that that's really, really important. You have to be a human being in this world, not be beholden to what you think you should be based on what you do for a living.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:41:00

Absolutely. And I think that you create space for others to have those moments of joy and levity.

So I hope that we're also creating space for you to have those moments of joy and levity as well. And with that, I will toss it over to jinx for the infamous lightning round.

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:41:21

I mean, you know, the drill, you've heard it before, but this is your turn to be on this side of the table. Don't think too hard.

Just answer the question. Quick

Chris Delaney:: 00:41:28

cocktail of choice tequila with one ice cube.

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:41:31

Okay. I'm not mad at that at all. Go to de-stress method,

Chris Delaney:: 00:41:35

heavy music. I've heard

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:41:37

some of that

Chris Delaney:: 00:41:38

Apple or PC Apple. That's like the

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:41:42

single answer we've seen every single time we need some diversity in our interviewees.

Chris Delaney:: 00:41:46

It sounds like you're trying to manipulate the data.

Eh, I

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:41:49

don't like the data. So, you know, uh, you know, butter smooth or crunchy

Chris Delaney:: 00:41:54

in a world where it didn't kill my partner and I ate it all the time. Whole foods has a peanut butter that you actually make there and it's like a creamy slash crunchy and Oh my God, it makes my mouth drool and I can't have it.

Yeah, that sounds pretty

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:42:05

fucking amazing. Okay. Good. And, uh, be honest now what's your favorite?

Chris Delaney:: 00:42:12

I vacillate between ass hat and ass clown. Those are my two .

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:42:17

Okay.

Chris Delaney:: 00:42:18

Lot of hats there though.

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:42:20

The ass is the commonality, right?

Chris Delaney:: 00:42:22

When you think about somebody wearing an ass as a hat, it's going to make a giggle. If not, it does.

Okay.

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:42:26

And I would expect as clowns to wear ass hats.

Chris Delaney:: 00:42:29

So I would too.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:42:32

I should really, it's all relative.

Chris Delaney:: 00:42:33

It's all relative.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:42:35

I love it. Well, Chris, thank you so much for, um, being brave enough to be the one to sit in the hot seat today and allow us to interview you and share your wisdom with the listeners. We appreciate you so much.

Thank you for that.

Chris Delaney:: 00:42:51

So I'm going to go put some aloe in my ass. I'm sitting in the hot seat for so long.

Robyn Sayles:: 00:42:55

And listen folks, hopefully one of the things that you gained from listening to Chris today is one of the tenants that I think a lot of us are drawn to and are living by as well, which is how you do business, is how you do life and vice versa.

And if right now your business does not allow you to live in the same way that you live in your daily life, then hopefully we're giving you some of the tools and references and things that you need to, to bring those two things together. Um, so Chris, before we wrap this up, what is the best way for people to find you on the

Chris Delaney:: 00:43:33

interwebs?

Facebook is where I spend a lot of my time on the content. It's just Chris Delaney. And then you can find me on my website. Done it newly up developed all pretty lag. And I am Chris delaney.com and you can email me there and I'd be more than happy to have a conversation about life, business, whatever you need.

And

Robyn Sayles:: 00:43:50

as per usual, we will put all of that great information in the show notes. We thank you so much. Thank you, James. Thank you, Chris. And to all of you out there, we will see you next Tuesday.

Chris Delaney:: 00:44:10

What the fuck are you waiting for? Take what you learned in this episode and do something with it. You'll find all the links and resources we

Chris 'Jinx' Jenkins:: 00:44:17

talked about in our show notes for this.

Chris Delaney:: 00:44:21

Go to unflag my business.com to subscribe to the show.